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Background: New Zealand midwives who are employed by District Health Boards and are based in hospitals and maternity units are known as core midwives. Half of New Zealand midwives are employed as core midwives, performing a variety of key roles and, as such, are central to the functioning of maternity services. The sustainability of core midwifery is therefore highly significant for the future of maternity services in New Zealand. Research on sustainable midwifery practice operates as a constructive counterpoint to the growing literature on burnout and stress amongst midwives. Aim: The question this study asked is: What sustains midwives who have been in hospital practice in New Zealand for more than eight years? The findings will inform workforce planners, managers and the midwifery profession about what may well contribute to the retention of midwives who are essential to the maternity services provided in hospital settings. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted in New Zealand, recruiting and interviewing 22 core midwives with between 8 and 40-plus years' experience. Interviews were transcribed and thematic analysis was undertaken by the research team. Analysis was done as a group in a reciprocal fashion between the individual interviews and the data as a whole. Themes were clustered into groups and excerpts from the data used to illustrate the agreed themes. Ethical approval was obtained from

Debates about infant-feeding methods have intensified in recent years with increasing pressures on women living in industrialized nations to breastfeed their infants. This paper, based on a qualitative study of 16 childbearing women with a pre-existing eating disorder living in the north of England, examines participants' motivations for, and understandings of, infant-feeding decisions and practices. In this study, a small number of participants reported being 'desperate' to formula feed in order to resume practices underpinning their eating disorder and thereby to shed the weight accumulated during pregnancy. These participants anticipated an early return to restrictive eating, heavy exercise regimes and/or bingeing/purging behaviours. Most participants, however, reported being 'desperate' to breastfeed because this implied 'good' mothering and prolonged the time during which they could consume 'naughty' treats. Women who opted to breastfeed generally believed this would accelerate weight loss. This study contributes to research on the subjective experiences of a particular group of women living with chronic illnesses and problematic relationships with their bodies. Negotiating individual transitions to motherhood required participants to confront their own, often longstanding, disrupted eating patterns and to make important decisions about infant-feeding methods. Findings from this study raise questions about some of the assumptions underpinning infant-feeding activities and articulate some of the complexities surrounding these issues. By highlighting ways in which women may compromise their own well-being by prioritizing their baby's needs, for example by persisting with breastfeeding when they were 'desperate' to re-engage with their disordered eating practices, an individualized cost-benefit framing is outlined.

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