[Representations of breastfeeding in the patient/nurse midwife relation]

At the crossroads of medical, cultural and psychological fields, breastfeeding can often provoke intense reactions. In the course of my profession as a midwife, I have observed difficulties in the encounters between patients and midwives. In the context of social representations, I wished to explore and compare the representations of breastfeeding of both patients and midwives, which will test the hypothesis that the incongruity in patient/midwife relationships derives from a difference in their respective representations of breastfeeding. In order to demonstrate this, I conducted partially structured interviews with five hospitalized patients three days post natal, and five midwives from the Geneva maternity ward. The qualitative thematic analysis of the discussions has shown large differences in comprehension between the patients and the midwives, notably in the subject of experience, the influence of contextual factors, emotions, and normative ideas. We can concur that, from the beginning, this hypothesis has in large part been validated. Propositions were formulated, and are the road to improvement. Even after childbirth, breastfeeding, apart from nourishing a child, not only serves as a catalyst for emotions, but also for tensions, conflicts, as well as cultural paradoxes, both domestic and cognitive.