Early weaning: implications for emotional development

Abstract

The early mother-infant interactions are critical in emotional development and, as claimed by psychoanalysis, some emotional problems originate in these early contacts. A significant moment of interaction is breastfeeding, since that physical contact, eye contact, and tuning the baby and the caregiver extend the meaning of breastfeeding by providing a silent communication that is fundamental to mental health and personality development. This project aims to investigate how national campaigns to promote breastfeeding address the emotional aspects of mother-infant interaction, in particular, a critical moment of this interaction which is weaning and its specificities - early weaning and self-weaning. Initially will be conducted a study of the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott's works and a bibliographic analysis of recent psychoanalytic studies on weaning and early weaning. Secondly, we will analyze the national campaigns to promote breastfeeding, linked to the World Breastfeeding Week, so as to identify how these campaigns approach weaning, the role of the emotional aspects involved in breastfeeding, and mental health prevention. Preliminary results suggest that campaigns to promote breastfeeding emphasize the physical damages to the baby caused by lack of breastmilk and that an important criterion to define weaning is chronological. (AU)