Article: "Too Old" and "Too Cold": Discomfort Towards Photographs of Breastfeeding Beyond Infancy and Public Breastfeeding in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Kathleen Chan, Kyly C Whitfield
PMID 34549657WHAT IT FOUND
Nova Scotian adults were more comfortable seeing breastfeeding in private than in public, and with a 2-week-old than a 2.5-year-old.
Women and parents were more accepting than men and non-parents.
Key findings
01Comfort was significantly lower for the 13-month-old in a store and both 2.5-year-old photographs than for the 2-week-old photographs and the 13-month-old at home.
02Women and parents felt more comfortable than men and non-parents, younger participants felt less comfortable than older participants, and rural residents felt more comfortable than urban residents.
03Open-ended comments became more negative with child age and public location, and disgust comments were only made about the 2.5-year-old.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Convenience sampling and a cross-sectional design mean the results may not represent all Nova Scotians and cannot show why attitudes changed. The photographs were not standardized: each public scene was different, so child age and location may be confounded. Open-ended comments were short and only categorized as negative, neutral, or positive, so the study did not explore the meaning behind reactions. All photographed models were white, so reactions may not apply across racial groups. The paper reports 229 participants in tables, while the text also says 259 were screened, 27 were ineligible, and 3 had incomplete questionnaires, making the analysed count unclear. Comfort with photographs is not the same as breastfeeding behaviour, and the study did not test any nursing or public-health intervention.
Declared interests
The study was funded by a Mount Saint Vincent University New Scholars Grant (#165434), and the first author received support from a Mount Saint Vincent University student internship for data analysis. The authors declared no conflicts of interest; the first author was an undergraduate dietetics student whose thesis advisor was the co-author.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read lower comfort with a 2.5-year-old breastfeeding as evidence that breastfeeding beyond infancy is medically inappropriate. The study measured adults' comfort with photographs, not child health, nutrition, or breastfeeding outcomes.