The purpose of this study was to explore how professionally-employed first-time mothers introduce their 6-12 month old infants to solids and progress to family meals. Three personal interviews were conducted and three infant feeding sessions were videotaped with a purposeful sample of twenty-seven mothers when their infants were 6, 9, and 12 months old. Mothers were 30-40 years old and living in a metropolitan area. Recruitment was through newspaper advertisements and mother-infant groups. Ecological and role theories informed the study design and the construction of qualitative interview guides. The constant comparative method of qualitative research guided the analysis of transcribed interviews. Observations of videotaped infant feedings were qualitatively analyzed and then compared and contrasted with key findings from the interviews. Three feeding typologies emerged, "relaxed", "getting by" and "hesitant" which offered contrasts on various themes related to: 1) attitudes towards infant feeding, 2) context of feeding, 3) mother’s lifecourse experiences, and 4) mother’s personal and family health and nutrition goals. The emerging conceptual framework suggests that professionally-employed mothers’ lifecourse experiences and their current and future goals for themselves and their families have important implications for infant feeding processes. This project was partially funded by an NIH Maternal and Child Nutrition Training Grant and the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University.
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