‘A game changer’: Las Vegas startup creates customized baby bottles

(Chitose Suzuki/Las Vegas Review-Journal)Emulait's tailored infant bottles, Classic Bottle, left, and Anatomy Bottle, right, are seen, Thursday, May 4, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Chitose Suzuki/Las Vegas Review-Journal)Shilo Ben Zeev, founder, chairman and CEO of Emulait, presents for a picture, Thursday, May 4, 2023, in Las Vegas, with his customized infant bottles, Anatomy Bottle, left, and Classic Bottle.
A Las Vegas-based startup set out to help close the space in between breastfeeding and bottle feeding, and two years later, its product has a waitlist of 50,000 consumers.

Shilo Ben Zeev established the customized baby bottle brand Emulait in 2021, but the idea came to him about 8 years earlier when his first child was born. The serial entrepreneur with a background in developing health-focused startups saw his wife battle to breastfeed, and he wished to develop products that might help those in the very first phases of parenthood.

While the product appears to appear like a somewhat different-shaped child bottle, it consists of a variety of functions to assist emulate the breastfeeding experience for a child.

" What we are attempting to show is that using our product is the closest possible to breastfeeding," he stated.

The bottles can be customized into 25 different variations, with 5 different kinds of nipples and five different colors that show different skin tones. To discover the best design, a mom scans their breast on the Emulait app - - which does not take photos - - to find the bottle type that a lot of closely matches their body.

Emulait initially hit the market in March and there has been strong customer need ever since. Ben Zeev stated the company has a waitlist of about 50,000 individuals. He anticipates the waitlist to diminish as the business's production strikes complete scale in August.

Science behind the bottle.

Since its founding, Emulait has made use of researchers and researchers from across a wide range of specializeds consisting of lactation, physiology, neonatal intensive care and pediatrics, according to Judith Shamian, former president of the International Council of Nurses and chair of Emulait's eight-member scientific advisory board.

" In order to construct something that is completely a video game changer in this field, (Ben Zeev) required strong science suggestions," Shamian said.

She kept in mind the bottles have unique features such as a special air intake system to reduce the amount of air an infant swallows, different valves to manage circulation and flexibility to simulate a genuine nipple.

Breastfeeding is considered as the healthiest method to feed a baby and it's advised by the American Academy of Pediatrics that a child ought to be solely breastfed for the first 6 months and that breastfeeding should then be accompanied with age-appropriate foods up until the baby is 2 years old.

The 2022 Breastfeeding Report Card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 62.6 percent of infants were solely breastfed during their very first month, but that number gradually decreases every month to 24.9 percent at 6 months. The report keeps in mind that households often don't breastfeed as long as they plan to and blames the decrease on a lack of support group for households.

Ben Zeev said he hopes its personalized bottles can make it simpler for mothers to continue breastfeeding as long as they prefer.

" In America, we anticipate mothers to go and breastfeed to work and return house and still breastfeed," he said. "Today, if you provide a bottle, it's really very hard, even difficult, to return to breastfeeding.".

Future strategies.

So far, Emulait has raised about $16 million in funding from family, good friends, specific financiers and its producer, Roembke Manufacturing and Design Inc., according to Ben Zeev.

" This is a substantial market," he stated. "You're talking about pacifiers; you're discussing breast pumps and adapters. We have more than 10 devices prepared beyond the bottles.".

Emulait just recently released pacifiers and plans to present a bottle warmer this summertime that can track how much liquid remains in a bottle.

The business has counted on social networks for its advertising, with online posts featuring influencers sharing product reviews and unboxing videos (opening brand-new bundles for viewers) on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Wells citizen and stay-at-home mommy Kristina Colangelo stated she became conscious of Emulait after seeing its TikTok advertisements. Colangelo, a TikTok creator known as @power_baker, said she was amazed that the company dealt with people certified by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners.

" So lots of business will reference pediatrician suggested … … however they leave out the (lactation) experts on the concern," Colangelo stated, who is pregnant with her 3rd child.

Her very first child is 2 1/2 years old and her second daughter is 9 1/2 months, who was currently bottle feeding by the time she purchased Emulait's product.

Colangelo noted it was initially tough to put the bottle together and that its March launch was "rocky," since there was a big demand for the bottles.

She wanted Emulait was offered earlier given that it was hard to transition her youngest child to the bottle.

" It generally needed to get to a point where she simply got hungry sufficient and recognized that the only way that she was getting any food was going to be through the bottle," Colangelo stated.

" I saw that Emulait could help moms avoid those situations, where their kid needs to basically simply get starving sufficient to be required to take it. That was something that I was like, ‘‘ Yes, I require to have this.' Just because I do not want to go through that again and need to have it be them discovering the tough method.".

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on Twitter.