CA1196893A - Feeding bottle having an air intake valve - Google Patents
Feeding bottle having an air intake valveInfo
- Publication number
- CA1196893A CA1196893A CA000419504A CA419504A CA1196893A CA 1196893 A CA1196893 A CA 1196893A CA 000419504 A CA000419504 A CA 000419504A CA 419504 A CA419504 A CA 419504A CA 1196893 A CA1196893 A CA 1196893A
- Authority
- CA
- Canada
- Prior art keywords
- bottle
- air intake
- valve
- wall portion
- feeding bottle
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Expired
Links
- 238000007789 sealing Methods 0.000 claims description 10
- 230000004044 response Effects 0.000 claims description 7
- 239000003570 air Substances 0.000 description 17
- 230000035611 feeding Effects 0.000 description 9
- 238000004140 cleaning Methods 0.000 description 3
- 239000008267 milk Substances 0.000 description 3
- 210000004080 milk Anatomy 0.000 description 3
- 235000013336 milk Nutrition 0.000 description 3
- 208000004998 Abdominal Pain Diseases 0.000 description 2
- 208000002881 Colic Diseases 0.000 description 2
- 239000012080 ambient air Substances 0.000 description 1
- 210000000481 breast Anatomy 0.000 description 1
- 230000001010 compromised effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000000875 corresponding effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000003780 insertion Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000037431 insertion Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000004519 manufacturing process Methods 0.000 description 1
- 239000000463 material Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000002093 peripheral effect Effects 0.000 description 1
Landscapes
- Check Valves (AREA)
Abstract
ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
The present invention relates to a feeding bottle having an air intake valve, said feeding bottle having a bottom cap comprising an inverted cup shaped portion, which extends into the bottle and is surrounded by a stretched, resilient rubber sleeve covering a radial hole in the cylin-drical wall of the cup portion to form an automatic air intake valve. The radial hole is provided in a part-cylindrical facet of reduced cross sectional curvature, whereby even a large rubber sleeve is easily liftable from the hole for sensitively admitting air into the bottle whenever a moderate suction vacuum is built up therein.
The present invention relates to a feeding bottle having an air intake valve, said feeding bottle having a bottom cap comprising an inverted cup shaped portion, which extends into the bottle and is surrounded by a stretched, resilient rubber sleeve covering a radial hole in the cylin-drical wall of the cup portion to form an automatic air intake valve. The radial hole is provided in a part-cylindrical facet of reduced cross sectional curvature, whereby even a large rubber sleeve is easily liftable from the hole for sensitively admitting air into the bottle whenever a moderate suction vacuum is built up therein.
Description
The present invention relates to a feeding bottle.
It is a well known problem that ordinary feeding bottles give rise to the babies getting colic to a more or less pronounced degree, and at least care should be taken to make the babies burp from time to time during their sucking. The reason is that they tend to continue their sucking until a relatively high vacuum is produced in the bottle, whereby they cannot avoid sucking in false air from outside the bottle teat. Breast-fed babies are less liable to get colic, because the sucking does not create any in-creasing counter vacuum, and normally the necessary natural suction vacuum in the amount of the baby does not cause any considerable intake of false air.
Principally it would seem easy to overcome the said vacuum problem in connection with feeding bottles, since all that is necessary is to arrange for an air intake valve which is adjusted so as to admit air into the bottle whenever a moderate vacuum has been built up therein, where-by the baby may empty the bottle without at any time creat-ing such a high vacuum as giving rise to the said false air intake. Correspondingly, several proposals for such a simple vacuum control function have already been made, but practice shows that they have obviously been inadequate, since they are practically unknown, despite the almost basic need for such a device.
These proposals may be divided into two groups, one using manually operated air inlet valves and the other using automatic valves. The first group is generally un-interesting, because a manual valve will require the same high degree of attendance as otherwise required for causing a break in the sucking, by pulling out the teat from the baby's mouth every now and again for enabling the vacuum in the bottle to be steadily kept at a low level. It is of course the automatic valves which are of primary interest, and again it is worth noting that such valves have not found their way to practical use, even though automatic air intake valves are known in many varie-ties from various f:ields of the technique, generally.
However, as far as feeding bottles are concerned,it will be a major requirement that the details of the air intake valve should be cheap, simple and robust and well suited to be separated for general cleaning and reassemblable by absolutely non skilled persons, and at the same time the valve system shall be fully tight against leakage of milk and yet highly sensitive so as to react to the building up of a moderate vacuum in the feeding bottle with a reasonably high degree of accuracy.
A basic possibility of an intake valve design is to use a valve member of a rubber sheet material placed against an apertured rigid wall portion of the bottle, e.g.
against the inside of a separate bottom closure cap, see the Danish Patent Specification No. 143,484 and the French Patent Specification NoO 1.058,G10. For tightly closing the valve against outflow of milk the rubber sheet shall have to be stretched so as to be tensioned against the wall, and when the rubber sheet, as desirable, is a robust and reason-ably thick element it will be very difficult to provide for such fine tolerances that the tensioned sheet will open for air intake with the required accuracy as to the vacuum res-ponse.
More specifically the invention relates to a feed-ing bottle having a valve of the above type and provides such a bottle, which may show an accurate vacuum response and yet be of a robust design.
According to the present invention there is `~:
,; :,~ , provided a fec~dincJ bottle of thc! type hclviny a suctiorl out;-let and an air intake vaLve spaced frorn the suction outlet which valve comprises an interior resilient valve sheet mern-ber cooperating with an apertured rigid wall portion of the bottle to form a check valve operable to open for admission of air into the bottle in response to a predetermined vacuum occurring therein, the resilient sheet member being adapted to be mounted so as to be generally stretched over a convex surface of said rigid wall portion, in which an air inlet hole is provided in a sub area, the sheet engaged surface of which is of srnaller convexity than the adjacent or surround-ing surface portions of the rigid wall portion.
Thus, there is still used a - 2a -' , res:LIient vaLve sheet member, which is caused to be stretched over a convex wall portion, but a sub area of t~lis poKtion arouncl t:he aLr intake hole is Iess convex, i.e. flatter.
Thus the pressure of the stretched sheet member against the rigid wall surface will be automatically reduced in the critical area about the air intake hole, and practice shows that in this manner a remarkably sensitive and accurate vacuum response is achievable even when the sheet member is a coarse element as suitable for repeated dismounting and remounting for cleaning purposes.
According to prior proposals it has been natural to combine the valve sheet member with the sealing ring member as required for sealing -the said bottom cap member to the bottle, viz. by using a shee-t disc member, the peri-pheral portion of which cons-titutes the said sealing ring.
By experimen-ts in connection with -the invention, however, it has been found that a-t least when a screw cap is used, the screwing friction at -the end of the mounting of the screw cap will cause twist s-tresses -to occur in -the shee-t member, whereby -the opening accuracy of the shee-t member is compromised~ It is a special preferred feature of the inven-tion, therefore, that the sheet member, when used in con-nection with a separate bottom screw cap, is a separate member which is non-integral with the said sealing ring, whereby it should, of course, be fixable to the bottom cap in some suitable manner other -than by being squeezed between the cap and the bottom hole edge of the bottle.
A preferred manner of arranging -the valve sheet member on a separate cap member is to let is surround the outside of a cup shaped inner portion of the cap member, i.e. to use a cylindrical valve sheet member or valve tubing mounted on a sligh-tly wider rigid cylinder portion of the cap member, this being a highly advantageous design.
~L~
tn the ~o:llowing the inverltion is descrihed in more detail with reference to the accompanyin-J dra~,~ing, i,n wllich:-Fig. l is a perspective exp],oded view of a feed-ing bot-tle according to the invention;
Fig. 2 is a sectional view of the bot-tle; and Fig. 3 is a cross sectional view of a cen-tral cup shaped portion of a bottom cap member of the bottle.
The feeding bottle as shown in Fig.s 1 and 2 is designated 2 and is topwise provided with a teat 4 in a fully conventiona] manner, the -tea-t being releasably secured to the neck of the bo-ttle by means of a screw member 6.
The bottle member has a bo-t-tom opening which is covered by a bottom screw cap 8. This cap has a central inverted cup shaped portion 10 which ex-tends into the bottle and is surrounded by a rubber sleeve 12. A radial hole 14 is provided in a portion 16 of the cylindrical wall of the cup portion 10.
As shown in Fig.s 2 and 3, -the wall portion 16, in which the hole 14 is provided, is an only sl,ightly con-vex wall portion or facet of the otherwise circular and thus generally more convex outside of the cup portion 10.
A sealing ring 18, which is non-integral wi-th the rubber sleeve or valve tubing 12, provides for the required sealing between -the bottom cap 8 and the edge of the lower opening of the bottle.
With the bottle closed bottomwise as here described the bottle may be filled fully conventionally through the top end thereof. Thereafter, the bottle May he used ini,-tially as any known feeding bott]e, in upside down position, but when the baby has caused a moderate vacuum to occur i,n the bottle the ambient air pressure wi,ll act through the hole~ 14 to lift the rubber s],eeve 12 off its enqagement with -the facet 16 or a part thereof, -the air thus finding its way into the bottle to prevent fur-ther vacuum build-up therein. Preferably -the cup portion 10 is sligh-tly conical, and when the sleeve 12 is non-conical the air - 4a -.~
will tend to enter the bo-ttle adjacent the inner end of the cup portion 10 or ra-ther the facet 16. Therefore, the baby will be able to continue the suc]cing without an~
need of intermediate stops for admitting air to the bo-ttle through the -teat 4 and wi-thout any considerable intake of false air due to overcritical vacuum in the bottle or rather in the mouth of the baby. E~en if the bottle is full the baby may comfortably suck it empty in a fully continuous manner.
Care should be taken, of course, that the rubber sleeve 12 is an "authorized" member having t~e necessary diameter and resiliency for - when stretched about the cup portion - defining or responding to the relevant maximum vacuum in the bottle. On the other hand, practice shows that the production of the rubber sleeves does not require any particularly fine tolerances, because a moderate change in the properties of the sleeves does not affect the opening pressure of the valve to a correspond-ing degree due to the presence of the almost flat facet 16.
It will be appr~ciated that the entire bottom closure and valve system is made of few and coarse elements which are easy to dismount for the necessary cleaning and easy to reassemble even for highly unskilled persons.
As mentioned, it is advantageous that the sleeve 12 is ~ /ith the sealing rin~ 18, ~L~ because the frictional engagement of the ring 18 at the end of the onscrewing of the bottom cap 8 could tend to produce stresses in the sleeve making its vacuum response less accurate, according to the degree of tightening of the cap 8. On the other hand it has been observed that the vacuum response of the valve is practically the same whether the sleeve 12 is mounted on the cup member 10 by a pure axial insertion or by a concurrent screwing motion, even if this motion is eased with an active finger tip located just outside the facet 16.
The invention is not restricted to the embodiment shown in the drawing. Thus, i.t would of course not be impossible to combine the sleeve 12 with the sealing ring 18. The valve should not necessarily be located bo-ttom-wise of the bottle, as i-t may operate ev~n when located a-t an area which in use is underneath the level of the milk in the bottle. The stabilized and sensitive valve function due to the facet 16 may even be achievable in connection with a val.ve disc as according to the prior art, viz. when the resilient disc is stretched over a dome shaped support having a less domed facet portion at the sub area where the relevant valve holes are provided.
It is a well known problem that ordinary feeding bottles give rise to the babies getting colic to a more or less pronounced degree, and at least care should be taken to make the babies burp from time to time during their sucking. The reason is that they tend to continue their sucking until a relatively high vacuum is produced in the bottle, whereby they cannot avoid sucking in false air from outside the bottle teat. Breast-fed babies are less liable to get colic, because the sucking does not create any in-creasing counter vacuum, and normally the necessary natural suction vacuum in the amount of the baby does not cause any considerable intake of false air.
Principally it would seem easy to overcome the said vacuum problem in connection with feeding bottles, since all that is necessary is to arrange for an air intake valve which is adjusted so as to admit air into the bottle whenever a moderate vacuum has been built up therein, where-by the baby may empty the bottle without at any time creat-ing such a high vacuum as giving rise to the said false air intake. Correspondingly, several proposals for such a simple vacuum control function have already been made, but practice shows that they have obviously been inadequate, since they are practically unknown, despite the almost basic need for such a device.
These proposals may be divided into two groups, one using manually operated air inlet valves and the other using automatic valves. The first group is generally un-interesting, because a manual valve will require the same high degree of attendance as otherwise required for causing a break in the sucking, by pulling out the teat from the baby's mouth every now and again for enabling the vacuum in the bottle to be steadily kept at a low level. It is of course the automatic valves which are of primary interest, and again it is worth noting that such valves have not found their way to practical use, even though automatic air intake valves are known in many varie-ties from various f:ields of the technique, generally.
However, as far as feeding bottles are concerned,it will be a major requirement that the details of the air intake valve should be cheap, simple and robust and well suited to be separated for general cleaning and reassemblable by absolutely non skilled persons, and at the same time the valve system shall be fully tight against leakage of milk and yet highly sensitive so as to react to the building up of a moderate vacuum in the feeding bottle with a reasonably high degree of accuracy.
A basic possibility of an intake valve design is to use a valve member of a rubber sheet material placed against an apertured rigid wall portion of the bottle, e.g.
against the inside of a separate bottom closure cap, see the Danish Patent Specification No. 143,484 and the French Patent Specification NoO 1.058,G10. For tightly closing the valve against outflow of milk the rubber sheet shall have to be stretched so as to be tensioned against the wall, and when the rubber sheet, as desirable, is a robust and reason-ably thick element it will be very difficult to provide for such fine tolerances that the tensioned sheet will open for air intake with the required accuracy as to the vacuum res-ponse.
More specifically the invention relates to a feed-ing bottle having a valve of the above type and provides such a bottle, which may show an accurate vacuum response and yet be of a robust design.
According to the present invention there is `~:
,; :,~ , provided a fec~dincJ bottle of thc! type hclviny a suctiorl out;-let and an air intake vaLve spaced frorn the suction outlet which valve comprises an interior resilient valve sheet mern-ber cooperating with an apertured rigid wall portion of the bottle to form a check valve operable to open for admission of air into the bottle in response to a predetermined vacuum occurring therein, the resilient sheet member being adapted to be mounted so as to be generally stretched over a convex surface of said rigid wall portion, in which an air inlet hole is provided in a sub area, the sheet engaged surface of which is of srnaller convexity than the adjacent or surround-ing surface portions of the rigid wall portion.
Thus, there is still used a - 2a -' , res:LIient vaLve sheet member, which is caused to be stretched over a convex wall portion, but a sub area of t~lis poKtion arouncl t:he aLr intake hole is Iess convex, i.e. flatter.
Thus the pressure of the stretched sheet member against the rigid wall surface will be automatically reduced in the critical area about the air intake hole, and practice shows that in this manner a remarkably sensitive and accurate vacuum response is achievable even when the sheet member is a coarse element as suitable for repeated dismounting and remounting for cleaning purposes.
According to prior proposals it has been natural to combine the valve sheet member with the sealing ring member as required for sealing -the said bottom cap member to the bottle, viz. by using a shee-t disc member, the peri-pheral portion of which cons-titutes the said sealing ring.
By experimen-ts in connection with -the invention, however, it has been found that a-t least when a screw cap is used, the screwing friction at -the end of the mounting of the screw cap will cause twist s-tresses -to occur in -the shee-t member, whereby -the opening accuracy of the shee-t member is compromised~ It is a special preferred feature of the inven-tion, therefore, that the sheet member, when used in con-nection with a separate bottom screw cap, is a separate member which is non-integral with the said sealing ring, whereby it should, of course, be fixable to the bottom cap in some suitable manner other -than by being squeezed between the cap and the bottom hole edge of the bottle.
A preferred manner of arranging -the valve sheet member on a separate cap member is to let is surround the outside of a cup shaped inner portion of the cap member, i.e. to use a cylindrical valve sheet member or valve tubing mounted on a sligh-tly wider rigid cylinder portion of the cap member, this being a highly advantageous design.
~L~
tn the ~o:llowing the inverltion is descrihed in more detail with reference to the accompanyin-J dra~,~ing, i,n wllich:-Fig. l is a perspective exp],oded view of a feed-ing bot-tle according to the invention;
Fig. 2 is a sectional view of the bot-tle; and Fig. 3 is a cross sectional view of a cen-tral cup shaped portion of a bottom cap member of the bottle.
The feeding bottle as shown in Fig.s 1 and 2 is designated 2 and is topwise provided with a teat 4 in a fully conventiona] manner, the -tea-t being releasably secured to the neck of the bo-ttle by means of a screw member 6.
The bottle member has a bo-t-tom opening which is covered by a bottom screw cap 8. This cap has a central inverted cup shaped portion 10 which ex-tends into the bottle and is surrounded by a rubber sleeve 12. A radial hole 14 is provided in a portion 16 of the cylindrical wall of the cup portion 10.
As shown in Fig.s 2 and 3, -the wall portion 16, in which the hole 14 is provided, is an only sl,ightly con-vex wall portion or facet of the otherwise circular and thus generally more convex outside of the cup portion 10.
A sealing ring 18, which is non-integral wi-th the rubber sleeve or valve tubing 12, provides for the required sealing between -the bottom cap 8 and the edge of the lower opening of the bottle.
With the bottle closed bottomwise as here described the bottle may be filled fully conventionally through the top end thereof. Thereafter, the bottle May he used ini,-tially as any known feeding bott]e, in upside down position, but when the baby has caused a moderate vacuum to occur i,n the bottle the ambient air pressure wi,ll act through the hole~ 14 to lift the rubber s],eeve 12 off its enqagement with -the facet 16 or a part thereof, -the air thus finding its way into the bottle to prevent fur-ther vacuum build-up therein. Preferably -the cup portion 10 is sligh-tly conical, and when the sleeve 12 is non-conical the air - 4a -.~
will tend to enter the bo-ttle adjacent the inner end of the cup portion 10 or ra-ther the facet 16. Therefore, the baby will be able to continue the suc]cing without an~
need of intermediate stops for admitting air to the bo-ttle through the -teat 4 and wi-thout any considerable intake of false air due to overcritical vacuum in the bottle or rather in the mouth of the baby. E~en if the bottle is full the baby may comfortably suck it empty in a fully continuous manner.
Care should be taken, of course, that the rubber sleeve 12 is an "authorized" member having t~e necessary diameter and resiliency for - when stretched about the cup portion - defining or responding to the relevant maximum vacuum in the bottle. On the other hand, practice shows that the production of the rubber sleeves does not require any particularly fine tolerances, because a moderate change in the properties of the sleeves does not affect the opening pressure of the valve to a correspond-ing degree due to the presence of the almost flat facet 16.
It will be appr~ciated that the entire bottom closure and valve system is made of few and coarse elements which are easy to dismount for the necessary cleaning and easy to reassemble even for highly unskilled persons.
As mentioned, it is advantageous that the sleeve 12 is ~ /ith the sealing rin~ 18, ~L~ because the frictional engagement of the ring 18 at the end of the onscrewing of the bottom cap 8 could tend to produce stresses in the sleeve making its vacuum response less accurate, according to the degree of tightening of the cap 8. On the other hand it has been observed that the vacuum response of the valve is practically the same whether the sleeve 12 is mounted on the cup member 10 by a pure axial insertion or by a concurrent screwing motion, even if this motion is eased with an active finger tip located just outside the facet 16.
The invention is not restricted to the embodiment shown in the drawing. Thus, i.t would of course not be impossible to combine the sleeve 12 with the sealing ring 18. The valve should not necessarily be located bo-ttom-wise of the bottle, as i-t may operate ev~n when located a-t an area which in use is underneath the level of the milk in the bottle. The stabilized and sensitive valve function due to the facet 16 may even be achievable in connection with a val.ve disc as according to the prior art, viz. when the resilient disc is stretched over a dome shaped support having a less domed facet portion at the sub area where the relevant valve holes are provided.
Claims (4)
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A feeding bottle of the type having a suction outlet and an air intake valve spaced from the suction out-let which valve comprises an interior resilient valve sheet member cooperating with an apertured rigid wall portion of the bottle to form a check valve operable to open for admis-sion of air into the bottle in response to a predetermined vacuum occurring therein, the resilient sheet member being adapted to be mounted so as to be generally stretched over a convex surface of said rigid wall portion, in which an air inlet hole is provided in a sub area, the sheet engaged sur-face of which is of smaller convexity than the adjacent or surrounding surface portions of the rigid wall portion.
2. A feeding bottle according to claim 1, in which said rigid wall portion is a regular or slightly coni-cal cylindrical portion having a part-cylindrical facet of reduced cross sectional curvature, in which the air intake hole is provided, the resilient sheet member being of cylin-drical shape and surrounding the cylindrical portion in a stretched manner.
3. A feeding bottle according to claim 1 or 2, in which the rigid wall portion forms part of a screw cap mem-ber, which is sealingly screwed onto the bottle, sealed by a sealing member, the resilient valve sheet member being a separate member non-integral with said sealing member.
4. A feeding bottle according to claim 2, in which the air intake valve is in connection with a bottom closure cap of the bottle, the bottom closure cap having an inverted cup shaped portion extending into the bottle and serving as a core member for a resilient valve sleeve member, which in its mounted condition is expanded so as to normally close the outer end of the air intake hole, this being a radial hole in said cup shaped portion.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000419504A CA1196893A (en) | 1983-01-14 | 1983-01-14 | Feeding bottle having an air intake valve |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000419504A CA1196893A (en) | 1983-01-14 | 1983-01-14 | Feeding bottle having an air intake valve |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA1196893A true CA1196893A (en) | 1985-11-19 |
Family
ID=4124339
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000419504A Expired CA1196893A (en) | 1983-01-14 | 1983-01-14 | Feeding bottle having an air intake valve |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA1196893A (en) |
-
1983
- 1983-01-14 CA CA000419504A patent/CA1196893A/en not_active Expired
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Legal Events
| Date | Code | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| MKEC | Expiry (correction) | ||
| MKEX | Expiry |