Managing infant feeding practices: the competing needs of bulimic mothers and their children.
OBJECTIVE
This paper seeks to explain how bulimic mothers accommodated infant feeding demands in conjunction with managing their disordered eating practices.


BACKGROUND
Eating disorders are chronic and disabling illnesses primarily affecting women. There are few qualitative studies describing bulimia in the context of motherhood.


METHODS
The study employed an inductive qualitative approach.


METHODS
A purposive sample of childbearing women (n = 16), who self-defined as living with an eating disorder, were recruited. Data were generated from one-to-one interviews; a thematic analysis identified key issues.


RESULTS
Participants were primarily responsible for ensuring child/ren's socialisation processes, including modelling appropriate dietary behaviours and these demands often conflicted with their personal needs for food restraint. Pressures to participate in social activities with children were widely experienced as stressful especially when these events focused on food. Participants viewed early and repeated exposure to 'healthy' eating as protective against their children acquiring an eating disorder and in this respect commercial child-care facilities provided alternative environments for children to explore food-related activities.


CONCLUSIONS
Participants employed a variety of strategies to ensure children's exposure to normalising influences and socialising processes. Concerns about personal competencies with respect to food preparation and storage were articulated by all participants.


CONCLUSIONS
Professionals involved with providing care to mothers and their infants are well placed to support bulimic clients and to foster confidence in their mothering skills. Early and appropriate intervention is key to effecting positive changes in bulimic patterns, with potential benefits to women's future health and well-being and that of their children.
Stapleton
Helen
H
The University of Sheffield School of Nursing & Midwifery, Centre for Health & Social Care Studies and Service Development, Samuel Fox House, Northern General Hospital, Herries Road, Sheffield, United Kingdom. h.stapleton@sheffield.ac.uk
Fielder
Anna
A
Kirkham
Mavis
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002032:Bulimia; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004739:England; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007225:Infant Food; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011247:Pregnancy; D036301:Qualitative Research; D055815:Young Adult