The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Turkish Ministry of Health recommend that babies continue to receive breast milk exclusively for the first 6 months and breast milk with additional foods until the age of 2. The importance of breast milk for infant health and development is known by everyone and mothers are very sensitive about this issue.
A mother’s social life or work may require her to be away from her baby for short periods of time. It is important that the baby continues to be breastfed even when the mother is not with her baby. This continuity is facilitated by the use of bottles that allow babies to apply the instinctive sucking motion on the pacifier that they apply on the mother’s breast.
How does breastfeeding occur in infants?
Babies instinctively perform a special movement when sucking on the mother’s breast. The baby takes the brown (aerola) part of the breast completely into its mouth and squeezes it between its tongue and palate. With the tip of the tongue, the baby uses a wave-like peristaltic tongue movement from back to front to expel the milk from the breast.
This movement is repeated an average of 800-1000 times during a sucking session. Feeding by sucking on the mother’s breast puts a lot of effort on babies. This is why some babies sweat, get tired and even fall asleep while sucking.
Babies establish a sucking pattern within the first 6 weeks. Babies who have not established a sucking pattern are not recommended a different feeding method other than the mother’s breast unless it is necessary.
It is important for babies to maintain this wave-like peristaltic movement for the development of their natural jaw, mouth and facial muscles.
Feeding babies from standard bottles can lead to “nipple confusion”.
When mothers have to be separated from their babies for different reasons, even for a short time, they use a bottle so that their babies can continue to be fed with breast milk. However, there are differences between the movements of babies sucking from the mother’s breast and feeding from a bottle. In standard bottles, milk spontaneously pours into the baby’s mouth while the baby is feeding. The baby does not exert the same effort to feed as it does at the mother’s breast. The baby who learns to feed in this way does not want to spend energy on the mother’s breast again. This is called “nipple confusion”.
With the right choice of bottle, babies can be fed from both breast and bottle.
Using a bottle that enables babies to apply a peristaltic sucking motion similar to the wave applied on the mother’s breast supports mothers to continue breastfeeding for longer. Supporting babies’ natural sucking movement is also important for the healthy development of their jaw, face and mouth.
*Woolridge et al, Key findings: “How Breast-fed Babies bottle-feed” Leeds Ultrasound Imaging Study 2 (LUIS-2) May 2011