Mothering at the Intersection of Marginality: Exploring Breastfeeding Beliefs and Practices Among Women From Nova Scotia, Canada Who Identify as Overweight, Low Income, and Food Insecure

Breastfeeding is represented to support healthy body weight and food security. However, breastfeeding may be negatively impacted by high maternal body weight and income-related food insecurity. Guided by feminist poststructural methodology, this study explored breastfeeding beliefs and practices amo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inQualitative health research Vol. 30; no. 11; pp. 1737 - 1748
Main Authors Sim, S. Meaghan, Kirk, Sara F. L., Aston, Megan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2020
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Body weight
Breastfeeding & lactation
Discourse analysis
Discourses
Food
Food security
Health technology assessment
Healthy food
Insecurity
Marginality
Mothers
Obesity
Overweight
Postpartum women
Prenatal care
Qualitative research
Womens health
Canada
Nova Scotia Canada
feminist poststructural methodology
Canada
qualitative
Nova Scotia
discourse analysis
income-related food insecurity
maternal subjectivity
breastfeeding
health practices
obesity
women’s experiences
interviews
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Summary:Breastfeeding is represented to support healthy body weight and food security. However, breastfeeding may be negatively impacted by high maternal body weight and income-related food insecurity. Guided by feminist poststructural methodology, this study explored breastfeeding beliefs and practices among women from Nova Scotia, Canada, identifying as income-related food insecure and overweight. Participants who were pregnant for the first time and intending to breastfeed participated in three interviews: prenatal (n = 8), first month postpartum (n = 6), and 3 months postpartum (n = 6). Employing discourse analyses, we found that participants’ experiences aligned with dominant discursive representations of these health issues, informed through normative understandings of what it means to mother. However, some participants resisted and reframed what constitutes good mothering to identify with maternal subjectivities that were context specific. The findings have implications for understanding how discourses shape maternal identities and their effects for breastfeeding and other health-related practices.
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ISSN:1049-7323
1552-7557
DOI:10.1177/1049732320921830