Influência social nas práticas alimentares do binômio mãe - filho nos primeiros seis meses de vida: estudo de caso em uma capital nordestina

Abstract

The first six months of the child's life is marked by the recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding, highlighting its benefit for the child and the mother, however, it is known that this binomial is inserted in a social system, interacting with different social actors and that the eating habits of both the child and the breastfeeding mother can change due to the social influences they receive during this period. Thus, this research is qualitative and exploratory in nature and is part of a ramdomized and multicenter field study entitled: "Evaluation of the effectiveness of a strategy to prevent consumption of sugar and ultra-processed foods in the first year of life in three regions of Brazil : randomized field trial”. Considering the first six months of the child's life, a period in which exclusive breastfeeding should be prioritized, the objective was to understand the set of social influences that affect the feeding practices adopted by the nursing mother and for her child in the first six months of life. For this purpose, eight mother-child binomials were selected from the sample of the larger study, recruited from two public hospitals in Salvador – BA with the the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. As a data collection instrument, a semi-structured interview was applied in the mothers' homes, at the age of six months of the child, from June to August 2019. For the analysis and treatment of the empirical material, the methodological approach described by Minayo and the interpretation was based on the light of Alfred Schütz's social phenomenology and understanding of the social world. As a result, the following themes emerged: Doing “correctly” in the first six months of a child's life; The actions of care with the feeding practices of the breastfeeding woman-mother; The social world of the mother-child binomial; The woman's blaming: the child's body/organism as a continuity of the breastfeeding woman-mother's body/organism; The deconstruction of the individual woman and maternity and The influence of the female figure on the feeding practices of breastfeeding women. From these thematic nuclei, it was possible to conclude that, during the breastfeeding period, women's eating practices are influenced by various factors to meet the child's demands at this stage of life and that the female figure is very present in the care of breastfeeding women. For child feeding, the woman-mother considered the guidelines received by health professionals, however, during the process, these guidelines were redefined according to the dynamics of the social world in which the mother-child binomial is inserted.