Introduction

Exploration of the Factors Influencing Attitudes to Breastfeeding in Public

“…Three of the dimensions related to mothers’ social interactions and reflect how breastfeeding mothers are perceived, with empathy or through the inconvenience they cause. This truly illustrates how breastfeeding can shed light on human relationships and how it is part and parcel of our social and cultural environment (Tomori et al, 2017). However, this suggests that raising awareness of the social exclusion breastfeeding mothers may experience and encouraging members of the public to view the issues from their point of view may be an effective way to promote acceptance of breastfeeding in public.…”

“…Another dimension strongly associated with opposition to breastfeeding in public was “breastfeeding in public is disgusting.” This is reminiscent of the strong negative views elicited by other breastfeeding practices, for example, milk sharing (Tomori et al, 2017; Tomori, Palmquist, & Dowling, 2016) and that reflect a broader disgust and distrust in human milk (Van Esterik, 2002). While difficult in practice, repositioning brand image and company reputation is a key function of marketing in the commercial sector (Gaustad, Samuelsen, Warlop, & Fitzsimons, 2019; Keller, 1999), which could prove effective in shifting negative public perceptions and attitudes in this context.…”

“…Recently those views have been made disproportionately visible through highly publicized events, which arguably contribute to mothers’ feelings of unease and embarrassment when breastfeeding in public (Komninou, Fallon, Halford, & Harrold, 2017) but also reinforces negative attitudes toward breastfeeding in public (Grant, 2016a, 2016b). A number of scholars have convincingly argued that improving breastfeeding rates and supporting mothers who wish to breastfeed is a collective responsibility and more should be done to promote public support for breastfeeding in public and challenge social norms (Grant, 2016a; Tomori, Palmquist, & Quinn, 2017). Shifting normative beliefs and improving attitudes toward breastfeeding in public can contribute to that agenda, and both social marketing campaigns and norm-based interventions could be effective tools (Miller & Prentice, 2016).…”

“…The role of mass media on public opinion in the context of infant feeding has been highlighted with an emphasis on how it could shape what is viewed as the norm (Brown, 2017; Foss & Blake, 2019; Tomori et al, 2017). In this respect, social media and the online comments on news items have proved a useful source of information to get an overview of stated reasons to support or oppose breastfeeding in public, but they have also highlighted seemingly different levels of support and attitudes by media type in the United Kingdom (Grant, 2016a, 2016b; Morris et al, 2016).…”

The COVID‐19 liquid gold rush: Critical perspectives of human milk and SARS‐CoV‐2 infection

“…Research is needed that more fully contextualizes lactation within the complexity of COVID-19 maternal-infant disease dynamics, in which human milk as part of a more holistic picture of diverse maternal-infant responses to infection (Table 1). Human milk cannot be understood separately from human life and more importantly, human milk cannot be understood separately from breastfeeding (Cassidy & El Tom 2015;Tomori, Palmquist, & Quinn, 2018;Van Esterik, 2015).…”