This is a natural thing, why can I not do this?: The impact of early breastfeeding difficulties on first-time mothers

Leeming, Dawn, Williamson, Iain, Johnson, Sally and Lyttle, Steven (2009) This is a natural thing, why can I not do this?: The impact of early breastfeeding difficulties on first-time mothers. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 27 (3). p. 314. ISSN 02646838

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Abstract

Although there is now a considerable body of literature which seeks to understand breastfeeding by exploring the perspectives of breastfeeding mothers, knowledge of how breastfeeding difficulties are managed in the very early post-partum period, and the impact of these difficulties on mothers, is still limited. In this paper we use a social constructionist version of interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore the experiences of eight first-time mothers who struggled with breastfeeding in the first post-partum week. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and audio-diaries. The over-arching theme identified was of a tension between the participants’ lived, embodied experience of struggling to breastfeed and the cultural construction of breastfeeding as ‘natural’ and hence relatively trouble-free.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman R Medicine > RT Nursing
Schools:	School of Human and Health Sciences
Related URLs:	Author
Depositing User:	Sara Taylor
Date Deposited:	28 Feb 2017 15:41
Last Modified:	26 Mar 2018 13:03
URI:	http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/31362

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