Abstract
The purpose of the study was to distinguish the characteristic between the conventional artificial nipples for the feeding bottle evaluated by the simulation study.
A sucking robot was devised and four types of the conventional artificial nipples, i. e. Pigeon with round outform and round hole (PRR), Chuchu with round outform and cross-cut hole (CRC), Nuk with elliptic outform (NE), and Beanstalk with elliptic outform and semilunar valves inside the nipple (BEV), were employed for the study. The volumes suckled for each nipple due to the negative sucking pressure and/or the existence of the compressive motion to the nipple were compared.
The following results were obtained;
1. There were marked differences depending on the nipples in the volume suckled due to the negative sucking pressure, besides the characterisitic differences which were brought about due to the additional compressing motion to the nipple.
2. BEV showed the lowest volume among the nipples employed due to the negative sucking pressure only. While when the compression motion was added to the nipple together with the negative sucking pressure, it showed the highest suckled volume.
3. Fairly high suckle volumes were shown in the PRR-M size, NE-S & M size, and CRC, PRR-S size in that order, due to both the negative sucking pressure and/or the compression motion.
4. Spontaneous leakage from the nipple hole was shown in the PRR nipple when the feeding bottle was set upside down, but any leakage was found in the CRC nipple with a crosscut hole.
