Breastfeeding Experiences of Aboriginal Women With Child Protection Involvement: A Qualitative Study

The rates of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander infant removal are disproportionately rising, affecting mother-infant attachment, disrupting breastfeeding and preventing infants' access to optimal nutrition. This significantly contributes to negative long-term health and wellbeing outcomes of children. Operating at the intersection of midwifery care and child protection services presents an ethical dilemma for midwives, who are required to provide culturally safe and respectful care while working with women during the perinatal period. The aim of this article is to present the exploration of breastfeeding experiences of Aboriginal women, in the Australian Capital Territory, in the context of a child protection intervention or child removal. Using an Aboriginal Participatory Action Research approach, data were collected using a social and research-topic yarning method, with five Aboriginal women. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic network analysis and then reanalysed through an interpretivist lens to present the data as vignettes. Women who had child protection involvement reported a lack of breastfeeding support from midwives and nurses that resulted in disrupted and unsupported breastfeeding. The women's involvement with child protection services led to experiences of stigma, oppressive practices and judgemental attitudes from midwives and nurses, that are evidence of professional breaches which impacted the mothers and infants' ability to benefit from breastfeeding. These findings point to the urgent need for midwives, nurses, and child protection workers to 1. Be accountable to work in culturally safe ways; 2. To privilege breastfeeding and 3. Provide supports to empower women to breastfeed to enable infants to have the 'best start in life' for an equitable future. Restorative approaches are proposed as a way forward to address these relational harms.