Baby bottles are capped with plastic nipples that only vaguely resemble the real thing. Usually babies accept this alternative to human nipples and feed. But Fast Company reports that startup company Emulait thinks that it can provide a better alternative.
Plastic nipples commonly have just a single hole perforating the top, unlike the more porous human nipple. Emulait's design more closely resembles milk ducts--an approach that the company calls "biomimetic." The plastic nipples themselves come in one of five shapes that reflect the five major shapes that a study of 1,000 scanned nipples determined the most common.
Five different colors are available to reflect different skin tones and the bottles themselves are available in a variety of shapes that reflect actual human breasts.
The end result is a bottle feeding experience that, Emulait speculates, will be more successful because it closely replicates natural breastfeeding.
Photo: Emulait