Exploring Infant Feeding Pratices In Food Insecure Households: What Is The Real Issue?

Abstract

This article presents results from a sociological exploratory case study on the relationship between infant feeding practice and household food insecurity in Canada. Drawing on interviews with 20 mothers living in low-income circumstances in Nova Scotia, this article discusses how the particular foodways of the mother-infant dyad—those that relate to food production through lactation, feeding method, food acquisition, and food consumption—are shaped by the social condition of household food insecurity. The findings demonstrate that household food insecurity led mothers to initiate breastfeeding, however severe levels of household food insecurity also compromised maternal food consumption and breastfeeding success. The findings also detail how infant food insecurity resulted from non-affordability and inaccessibility of formula. For infant food security to occur, mothers must be supported to be producers of food and supported in accessing reliable, safe, affordable, personally acceptable alternatives through socially just means when breastfeeding is not possible. Doing so will require adopting a mother-centered harm reduction approach to infant feeding support, along with broader policy considerations aimed at improving economic and social welfare.