“It Makes My Skin Crawl”: Women’s experience of breastfeeding aversion response (BAR)

Morns, Melissa; Steel, Amie; McIntyre, Erica; Burns, Elaine

doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2022.01.001

Cited by 9 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…BAR is characterized by involuntary and overwhelming feelings of aversion that occur during an entire breastfeed, at any time during the breastfeeding journey or can be a new experience for women who had a previously uneventful breastfeeding relationship (Morns et al . 2022). D‐MER and BAR are therefore different conditions.…”

Section: Considering Perinatal Mental Health and D‐mer In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acknowledging that D-MER is a dysphoria experienced by some breastfeeding mothers is validation in itself and reported as meaningful. Morns et al (2022) investigated the experiences of breastfeeding women who had an aversion response to breastfeeding. Participants described that the experience of BAR was unexpected and challenging for women.…”

Section: Relevance For Women Families and Mental Health Nursing Ser-v...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…D-MER and breastfeeding aversion response (BAR) are only recently receiving recognition within evidence-based literature and could be mistaken for postnatal depression. BAR is characterized by involuntary and overwhelming feelings of aversion that occur during an entire breastfeed, at any time during the breastfeeding journey or can be a new experience for women who had a previously uneventful breastfeeding relationship (Morns et al 2022). D-MER and BAR are therefore different conditions.…”

Section: Considering Perinatal Mental Health and D-mer In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Morns et al . (2022) investigated the experiences of breastfeeding women who had an aversion response to breastfeeding. Participants described that the experience of BAR was unexpected and challenging for women.…”

Section: Relevance For Women Families and Mental Health Nursing Servi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D‐MER) and its implications for mental health nursing

Frawley¹,

McGuinness

2023

Int J Mental Health Nurs

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Dysphoric milk ejection reflect (D‐MER) is a dysphoria which women may experience within seconds of commencing breastfeeding. It is only recently gaining recognition in the academic literature and may have important implications for breastfeeding continuation, differential diagnosis and perinatal mental health. This perspective piece introduces the topic, sets out the physiological processes underpinning the experience and outlines why increased awareness of D‐MER is important for the profession of mental health nursing.

show abstract

Section: Considering Perinatal Mental Health and D‐mer In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Relevance For Women Families and Mental Health Nursing Ser-v...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Considering Perinatal Mental Health and D-mer In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Relevance For Women Families and Mental Health Nursing Servi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D‐MER) and its implications for mental health nursing

Frawley¹,

McGuinness

2023

Int J Mental Health Nurs

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“…Parents who experience lactation problems leading to use of assistive feeding devices or exclusive pumping,6 for example, may experience grief. Researchers have also documented the potential for grief-like experiences among those experiencing breastfeeding aversion or dysmorphic milk ejection reflex (D-MER) 7,8…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Breastfeeding Grief

2022

Journal of Perinatal &Amp; Neonatal Nursing

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Breastfeeding Grief* "Breastfeeding" is used throughout as an umbrella term encompassing direct breast/chestfeeding, as well as provision of one's own milk to one's child by any means (bottle, etc), unless otherwise specified. We acknowledge that parents feed their children by many different methods and use variable terminology to describe it. As healthcare providers, it is important to mirror a parent's descriptors when assessing or providing counseling on infant feeding. It is also important to seek clarification if a term is unfamiliar or potentially ambiguous (eg, "bottle-feeding"). 10 Disclosure:The author has disclosed that she has no significant relationships with, or financial interest in, any commercial companies pertaining to this article.Each author has indicated that he or she has met the journal's requirements for Authorship.

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Breastfeeding, mutual gratification, and emotion self-regulation: Bridging gaps across object relations, drive- and attachment-based psychoanalytic theories.

Biagianti,

Gripsrud

2024

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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Like all mammals, human beings are born vulnerable and dependent on the care of another in order to survive and navigate embodied emotionality, and through most of human history and across cultures (Stuart-Macadam & Dettwyler, 1995), breastfeeding has served to this end. While emotion self-regulation (ESR) is unequivocally considered a major developmental achievement, less is known about how and why emotion regulation takes place. Drawing on object relations, drive-and attachment-based theories, we speculatively address these underexplored questions through a theoretical reappraisal of the breast, a (once) rich and important metaphor that is growing obsolete in contemporary psychoanalytic thinking. Based on Freud's argument that the breast's function in infant development goes beyond the purely nutritional, as libidinal drive gains its power from being propped upon a bodily function necessary to preserve life, we tentatively explore the possible interplay between breastfeeding and ESR. Above and beyond its well-recognized function as a distress modulator for the infant, we draw on a range of knowledge sources to hypothesize that, provided basic conditions are in place, breastfeeding holds a potential for sensual, affective, and erotic gratification for the mother likewise. We propose a paradigm according to which the possibility of embodied breastfeeding to generate a mutual experience of pleasure, intimacy, and desire can serve two interconnected purposes. First, if experienced as fulfilling and pleasurable, breastfeeding may allow for effective dyadic attunement while alleviating the emotional labor of regulating the infant's emotions. Second, we posit that mutually gratifying breastfeeding may facilitate the development of affective, relational, and protosexual experiences among children that can positively affect ESR, as well as how they may later relate to desire, affect, and intimacy. Conversely, we wonder whether early deprivation or uneroticized breastfeeding could lead to disturbances in the development of the attachment and pleasure systems, which in turn could manifest as a disruption of ESR, relational and sexual processes, and may result in adult psychopathology.

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“It Makes My Skin Crawl”: Women’s experience of breastfeeding aversion response (BAR)

Cited by 9 publications

References 32 publications

Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D‐MER) and its implications for mental health nursing

Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D‐MER) and its implications for mental health nursing

Breastfeeding Grief

Breastfeeding, mutual gratification, and emotion self-regulation: Bridging gaps across object relations, drive- and attachment-based psychoanalytic theories.

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