The linked article recounts a study that appears to link breast feeding to baby health in an unexpected and new way, unlike the typical immune system assertions.

The claim is that the process of extracting milk from a breast is sufficiently harder than doing so from a bottle that babies build up better lung function.

Without getting involved in the "to breast feed or not to breast feed" debate, and since there are obviously uses for the bottle even outside of milk feeding, it seems that a useful invention would be to create a bottle nipple pump that would in fact simulate the harder breast feeding experience, and get those lungs that extra exercise.
-- theircompetitor, Jan 03 2009

Breast Feeding Lung Capacity Study http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28471503/
[theircompetitor, Jan 03 2009]

Haberman feeder http://en.wikipedia...iki/Haberman_Feeder
[hazel, Jan 03 2009]

sucking nipples harder http://www.google.c...king+nipples+harder
Note the second link [zeno, Jan 04 2009]

rcarty -- interesting point regarding the "study suggests" [m-f-d], but I think you are taking yourself a bit too seriously towards the end, there.
-- theircompetitor, Jan 03 2009


no, really, all the crap people have put their babies through because some expert or study told them to, only later to find out that it did more harm than good. All baby studies deserve a solid coating of NaCl before consumption. Cor/Cause fallacies abound these days on the HB and anything that cuts down on this gets my support. don't even ask how many hits "sucking, nipples, harder" brought up.
-- WcW, Jan 03 2009


Personally, I can't believe they make them chew pacifiers.

But this idea does not appear to me to match the spirit of the [m-f-d] rcarty refers to -- I'll defer to what a moderator says.
-- theircompetitor, Jan 03 2009


rcarty, with respect, my response (you commented first, after all) was not about disparaging you, but about the tone your comments were taking. In this later comment, you seem to append emotional baggage to a study, that whatever its flaws, attempts to be scientific. That it studies suckling babes, as opposed to a goat's cock, as Freud would put it, does not invalidate it.
-- theircompetitor, Jan 03 2009


I think this may already be baked. There are already some bottles that claim to make the baby work harder for milk. At their most simple they just have a very small aperture in the teat which reduces milk flow, but others, such as the Haberman feeder [link] have valves.

One question, though, is whether any improved lung capacity resulting from breastfeeding is purely due to the physical action of suckling at the breast or whether there are other nutritional/social factors.
-- hazel, Jan 03 2009


[admin: I appreciate the mfd study-suggests territory, but am okay with letting this stay, since the invention is obviously possible, but not directly suggested by the study, and the study results aren't spun out of control.]
-- jutta, Jan 03 2009


The before mentioned study aside ( I could have sucked that out of my thumb), we did notice that our son has much greater sucking capacity than our daughter. Son breastfed, daughter not. Our daughter dsiplayed a deafening lung capacity though.

Make the bottle harder to suck? Might be good but then again, as a parent you're glad if it goes down and stays down. No need to complicate things I say.
-- zeno, Jan 04 2009


Kudos to [their...] for keeping abreast of the most current research. But if mammary serves, the lungs and the stomach are seperated in most organisms. There might be some kind of alimentry error in the data of the study. I could be wrong it is not my areola of expertise.
-- 4whom, Jan 04 2009



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