Infant feeding bottle including pressure equalizing diaphragm

DETAILED DESCRIPTION More particularly, this invention relates to a new and very useful improved bottle structure which is provided with an elastomeric apertured diaphragm means that is elastomerically responsive to differential gas pressure between the pressure of the air space in the bottle interior and the exterior air pressure.
The diaphragm permits air to pass in one selected direction in response to such differential pressure, thereby to equalize gas pressure between the bottle structure interior and the external gaseous environment.
The bottle structure is particularly useful for infant feeding.
The invention also relates to a new and improved method of avoiding a bottle interior gas pressure differential relative to exterior gas pressure, such as occurs during withdrawal of liquid from the bottle.
The invention further relates to the elastomeric apertured diaphragm itself as an article of manufacture.
In an infant feeding bottle structure there is incorporated as a bottle body a walled housing (preferably longitudinally elongated) having an aperture at each opposite end.
These apertures are each provided with a circumferentially extending threaded lip region.
Two rim-threaded caps are provided, one for association with each respective threaded lip region.
Each cap includes a hole means in a mid-region thereof.
Nipple means outwardly extends from association with one cap, and the elastomeric apertured diaphragm means is inwardly centrally extendable from the other cap, relative to the bottle.
Preferably, the apertured diaphragm is thickened and centrally dome-configured.
The apertures are closed and sealed shut when the diaphragm is relaxed, but the apertures open when the diaphragm is expanded responsive to applied gas pressure differentially applied to one side thereof, particularly the concave side of the dome.
By orienting a dome-configured diaphragm so that the dome is concave when viewed externally to the assembled bottle, the diaphragm is better enabled to maintain its apertures in a sealed shut configuration when the bottle is upright with liquid resting on top of the diaphragm