Examining the use of ‘natural’ in breastfeeding promotion: ethical and practical concerns

Martucci, Jessica; Barnhill, Anne

doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104455

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Moreover, media sources draw boundaries between mothers based on their feeding practices: they represent breastfeeding mothers as virtuous, and those who use formula as being unprofessional dilettantes or simply bad mothers (Aronis, 2019). Furthermore, mothers who do not breastfeed are sometimes shamed and asked to return to the “natural” way to feed their children (Martucci & Barnhill, 2018), regardless of their physical ability to breastfeed (MacKay, 2021).…”

Section: Isa and Mother Blaming: What Made Me Believe My Mother Was T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mother blaming and anorexia: How ideological state apparatuses have informed my perception of my mother's role in the formation of my eating disorder

Mikhaylova

2022

Feminism & Psychology

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Autoethnographic research has described the tendency to ascribe blame to mothers for their daughters’ disordered eating patterns, but the mechanisms by which these attitudes develop have been insufficiently investigated. The literature on mother-blaming and mothers’ roles in the development of women's eating disorders has provided macro-level theoretical explanations for this attribution of blame but lacks depictions of women who subscribe to these macro narratives and yet subsequently attribute blame to their own mothers on the micro level. In this paper, I address these two gaps by conducting a feminist autoethnographic inquiry into my own history of blaming my mother for my anorexia and other disordered eating patterns. I use classical structuralist and post-structuralist theoretical concepts, as well as Althusser's proposed neo-Marxist idea of ideological state apparatuses (ISAs). Results indicate that my mother-blaming behavior was mainly influenced by apparatuses of medicine, church, education, family, and culture. Legal, political, civic, and media apparatuses were less involved in the construction of my perception in this area. All in all, my findings provide richer insight into mother-blaming internalization on the micro level and enlarge the “palette” of feminist approaches to eating disorder analysis.

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Section: Isa and Mother Blaming: What Made Me Believe My Mother Was T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mother blaming and anorexia: How ideological state apparatuses have informed my perception of my mother's role in the formation of my eating disorder

Mikhaylova

2022

Feminism & Psychology

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“…Beyond the benefits to the mother-child dyad, there are economic and environmental advantages [7,8] to breastfeeding due to the cost of formula, inaccessibility of clean water [9][10][11], and the contribution to plastic waste by formula containers [12]. However, due to a host of personal, cultural, biomedical, socioeconomic and policy factors [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], breastfeeding is far from being a behavior which comes easy to mothers [21][22][23][24] or innate to the child [25]. For these reasons, it is critical that mothers receive the support they need to meet their feeding goals [26,27], which may involve exclusive breastfeeding or mixed feeding-all in an effort to prompt the healthiest outcomes for the mother-child dyad.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The complex geographies of telelactation and access to community breastfeeding support in the state of Ohio

Grubesic

Durbin

2020

PLoS ONE

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The availability of breastfeeding support resources, including those provided by Baby-Friendly Hospitals, International Board Certified Lactation Consultants, breastfeeding counselors and educators, and volunteer-based mother-to-mother support organizations, such as La Leche League, are critically important for influencing breastfeeding initiation and continuation for the mother-child dyad. In addition, the emergence of community support options via information and communication technologies such as Skype and Facetime, social media (e.g., Facebook), and telelactation providers are providing mothers with a new range of support options that can help bridge geographic barriers to traditional community support. However, telelactation services that use information and communication technologies to connect breastfeeding mothers to remotely located breastfeeding experts require reliable, affordable, high-quality broadband connections to facilitate interaction between mothers and their support resources. The purpose of this paper is to explore the complex spatial landscape of virtual and face-to-face breastfeeding support options for mothers in the state of Ohio (U.S.), identifying barriers to support. Using a range of spatial and network analytics, the results suggest that a divide is emerging. While urban areas in Ohio benefit from both a density of face-to-face breastfeeding support resources and robust broadband options for engaging in telelactation, many rural areas of the state are lacking access to both. Policy implications and several potential strategies for mitigating these inequities are discussed.

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“…Many mothers are unable to draw on adequate breastfeeding support from family, friends, and sometimes from health professionals; and in some cases are discouraged by them from breastfeeding (13)(14)(15). Further, studies suggest mothers are often underprepared for the challenges of breastfeeding due to unrealistic messaging: Breastfeeding in the West is often promoted as being "natural," which can lead to misconceptions that it is an instinctive/easy behaviour (14,(16)(17)(18) -when in fact many women find breastfeeding challenging (14)(15)(16)(18)(19)(20). Overall, the lack of practical breastfeeding knowledge, combined with the shortage of breastfeeding support, leaves mothers vulnerable to breastfeeding challenges (14).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Typologies of postnatal support and breastfeeding at two months in the UK

Emmott¹,

Page²,

Myers³

2019

Preprint

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Extensive evidence suggests that social support improves breastfeeding outcomes. Building on this evidence-base, public health services and interventions aiming to improve breastfeeding rates have primarily targeted informational and emotional support to mothers, reflecting an individual behaviour-change approach. However, mothers exist within a wider social network, and the characteristics of their broader support networks may be an important predictor of breastfeeding outcomes. Here we explore the typologies of postnatal support for mothers in the UK; a population with one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe. Using retrospective data from an online survey (data collection period between December 2017 and February 2018), we carry out a latent class regression (n=432) to identify “clusters” of postnatal support in our data. Mothers in our sample were most likely to receive practical and emotional support from partners and maternal grandmothers, and breastfeeding information from health professionals. We identify three distinct typologies of postnatal support: 1) Extensive support, where mothers received support from a wide range of supporters including partners, maternal grandmothers, friends and health professionals, but mothers were the only ones to feed the infant; 2) Family support, where mothers received support from partners and maternal grandmothers, including with infant feeding, but less likely to receive support from health professionals; and 3) Low support, where mothers primarily received support from partners. 94% of women with extensive support were predicted to be breastfeeding at two months, followed by 48% of mothers in the low support group, and 13% in the family support group. Our findings highlight the complexities of family support and its potential impact on breastfeeding, as well as the significance of professional support. Overall, our results hint at the potential value for health professionals to engage with wider family in order to achieve extensive support for mothers.

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Examining the use of ‘natural’ in breastfeeding promotion: ethical and practical concerns

Cited by 15 publications

References 15 publications

Mother blaming and anorexia: How ideological state apparatuses have informed my perception of my mother's role in the formation of my eating disorder

Mother blaming and anorexia: How ideological state apparatuses have informed my perception of my mother's role in the formation of my eating disorder

The complex geographies of telelactation and access to community breastfeeding support in the state of Ohio

Typologies of postnatal support and breastfeeding at two months in the UK

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