why breastfeeding grief and trauma matter

A startlingly large number of women who want to breastfeed have to stop before they are ready, leaving them feeling a range of negative emotions, including grief, anger, guilt, shame and frustration, and often blaming themselves. But in a society that places little value on breastfeeding and mothers’ feelings, their painful stories are often swept under the carpet to the detriment of women’s mental health and experience of new motherhood.

Professor Amy Brown has researched what breastfeeding really means to women, how they can feel when things don’t go according to plan and importantly, how we can change things for the next generation of women. Her findings make fascinating reading for anyone with personal experience of breastfeeding difficulties, those who support mothers to make infant feeding decisions that are right for them, or those who simply want to be part of changing the conversation.

Professor Amy Brown is based in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Social Sciences at Swansea University in the UK where she is Director of ’LIFT’ - the centre for Lactation, Infant Feeding and Translation. With a background in psychology, she first became interested in the many barriers women face when breastfeeding after having her first baby. Three babies and a PhD later she has spent the last fifteen years exploring psychological, cultural and societal barriers to breastfeeding, with an emphasis on understanding how we can shift our perception of breastfeeding from an individual mothering issue, to a wider public health problem.

Professor Brown has published over 100 papers exploring the barriers women face in feeding their baby during the first year. In 2016 she published her first book Breastfeeding Uncovered, followed by Why Starting Solids Matters (2017), The Positive Breastfeeding Book (2018) and Informed is Best and Why Breastfeeding Grief and Trauma Matter (both 2019). She is a regular blogger, aiming to change the way we think about breastfeeding, mothering and caring for our babies.