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Breastfeeding (Un)Covered: Narratives of Public Breastfeeding on Romanian Discussion Forums

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to explore the construction of breastfeeding in public, as depicted in the stories and the opinions of women participating in discussions on public forums.

Method

There were 8 discussion forums selected, from which 769 messages were subjected to a narrative analysis further informed by recurrent themes identified in the literature and across messages. The emerging narratives were grouped based on their valence, and three broader categories of themes were formed, highlighting the predominant tone towards breastfeeding in public.

Results

The three broader themes, ‘public restraint of breast(feeding) as acknowledgement of the cultural status-quo’, ‘permission within boundaries’ and ‘breast(feeding) as a human right’, depict various meanings and experiences associated with public breastfeeding. People seeing breasts as mainly a cultural symbol of sexuality were more against public breastfeeding and more in favour of covering up or striving to discretion. Those arguing that breastfeeding is no more than exercising a fundamental right and pleading for breast as a primary maternal symbol were more in favour of breastfeeding in public.

Conclusion

Aiming to understand personal and social perspectives on public breastfeeding is informative for understanding cultural differences in breastfeeding rates but also for designing effective interventions to promote it.

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Notes

  1. A Romanian popular saying used when a person wants to refer to an event that happened a long time back

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Acknowledgements

I want to thank my supervisor and colleague, Prof. Adriana Băban, for encouraging and offering me valuable scientific advice and support in drafting this paper. I also want to thank junior colleagues Delia Cristescu, PhD candidate and Mihaela Bocan, MSc, for helping me in coding the primary data. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insights, comments and valuable suggestions made on the earlier draft of this article.

Funding

Part of the work of the author, Diana Taut, was supported by a grant (project number PNII-RU-TE-2014-4-2111) of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation CNCS - UEFISCDI (Unitatea Executiva pentru Finantarea Invatamantului Superior, a Cercetarii, Dezvoltarii si Inovarii). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Diana Tăut

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Correspondence to Diana Tăut.

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Tăut, D. Breastfeeding (Un)Covered: Narratives of Public Breastfeeding on Romanian Discussion Forums. Int.J. Behav. Med. 24, 815–826 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9687-7

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