When Breastfeeding Sucks

Many mothers and those who support them do not know that they can experience negative emotions associated with breastfeeding. In modern society breastfeeding is often used – problematically – to exemplify myths about motherhood and maternal love, and is bound up with ideas of what makes a ‘good mother’. In this context nursing aversion and agitation – intense, distressing feelings that are experienced by the mother during breastfeeding – can be both unexpected and hugely upsetting, particularly when women may have already overcome significant challenges in order to breastfeed.

In When Breastfeeding Sucks Zainab Yate examines what we know about this poorly understood aspect of infant feeding, in a carefully researched discussion that will be valuable for individual mothers who may be suffering, and the breastfeeding supporters who work to support them.

Zainab Yate BSc, MSc (Medical Ethics & Law, Imperial College London) is an independent researcher and campaigner, and published the first study looking at breastfeeding/nursing aversion and agitation in 2017.

She has been a breastfeeding peer supporter with the NHS for a number of years and is author of the only resource site for mothers and healthcare practitioners on aversion (www.breastfeedingaversion.com), where she researches and writes about aversion and why it arises. She has helped thousands of women when breastfeeding triggers negative emotions through her free structured support course and peer to peer support group online.

Her working background is in public health and commissioning within the NHS and she is currently vice-chair and named qualitative lead of the North London Research Ethics Committee, with the Health Research Authority in the UK (HRA). She is also a member of the Kings College London Research Ethics, Governance Policy & Integrity Committee (KCL). In both roles she is a breastfeeding advocate and infant feeding research ethics expert for the committees.