Air Vents: A solution or a bigger problem?

Air bubbles in a bottle: Numerous baby and parent related medical websites talk about the associated effects of a baby (being a new born or toddler) swallowing air. Instinctually, a baby will swallow air in the attempt to feed his/herself.

 Air swallowing occurs in a variety of instances:
- During initial attempts to achieve a perfect latching when breast feeding

- Improper latching on a breast or bottle nipple
- Fast letdown, milk oversupply or an inappropriate nipple (for bottle-fed babies), causes baby to take rapid, large gulps of milk/formula and air while trying to keep up.
- Babies swallow air when crying
- Babies who skip several days between bowel movements tend to be gassy.

Air Vents: A solution or a bigger problem? Bottle-fed babies face the problem of swallowing air bubbles that are mixed in with milk/formula. Almost all of the bottles today offer a variety of air-vents to prevent bubbly milk and nipple collapsing. These vents create a wind stream that flows from the outside into the bottle so that the air-bubbles disappear, visually anyway.

What happens to the air flowing into the bottles through air-vents? Unfortunately, it mixes with the milk/formula and gets swallowed by the baby in every mouth full, ending up in the baby's digesting system.

Different nipple stages: Most nipples supply milk with minimal effort from baby. It's why breast-feeding consultants do not recommend alternating breast and bottle feeding. Once an infant is fed with a bottle, he/she is most likely to repel mother's breast.