Before I had a baby, I never considered nipples to be so full of peril.

But now I have a one-month-old and a very tired wife, and sometimes I like to give my wife a break and feed our little girl. Most bottle nipples seem designed to thwart breastfeeding, because it's a lot easier to get milk out of a bottle than out of the breast. That creates the dreaded 'nipple confusion,' which isn't confusion at all - babies start thinking, why do I have to strain with this boob in my mouth when I could just wait for somebody to pour milk down my gullet?

Then I discovered Second Nature nipples. Designed just two years ago by a former NASA scientist looking for a way to make spillproof cups and drink bottles, Second Nature nipples have a grid of tiny valves at the end, rather than just a hole. The valves only open if you both squeeze down on the nipple and suck, which is not coincidentally what a baby must do with a human breast. Apparently, scientists in California and Wisconsin are working on studies to see if these nipples really do solve the breast/bottle dilemma. The nipples are also spillproof, so liquid doesn't spray everywhere when you're shaking the bottle. And they're made and sold by a pretty small (15-person) American business, not by some baby-products giant. The only downside is that they're a little fragile, so I'm already hunting around for more.

The result: at our house, no nipple confusion. Happy baby with breast and bottle, and daddy who's kind of psyched to be feeding baby with cool space-age gadget. The nipples are kind of difficult to find, though, so find stores selling them at RegalLager.com.

Update: Apparently, our software has auto-censored the most inoffensive possible word for a lady's upper frontal superstructure. Yet oddly, it does not censor boob, ta-ta, hooter, honker or gazoonga. How the heck are we supposed to talk about breastfeeding if we can't talk about breasts? Score one for the Janet Jackson police.