Medela Special Needs Feeder is designed for babies with cleft lip and palate, and for babies with neurological disorders. *By squeezing the teat, you can support the flow of breast milk so that it's easier for your baby to drink. Babies born with cleft lip and palate, like any other babies, need to learn how to feed successfully in order to thrive and grow. If the baby has a cleft lip only (with a normal palate), he/she should be able to eat normally using standard techniques. Babies with cleft lip only can even breastfeed, if you desire.
However, babies born with a cleft lip and palate, or cleft palate only, have an opening in the roof of their mouth, between the mouth and nose. This opening in the palate makes it difficult to create the suction needed to pull milk out of the bottle or to latch on to the breast to breastfeed. This means that babies with cleft palate are at risk for poor weight gain because they use a lot of energy to feed.