SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF BREASTFEEDING: GENDER PERSPECTIVE AND EXPERIENCES OF MOTHERS WITH PAID WORK

Breastfeeding is a bio-cultural practice, considered a public health issue. It is also a socially learned practice linked to the exercise of maternal activities. All societies have a social representation of motherhood that guides their policies and governs their actions. However, the conception of each group of women that conforms it, changes in relation to their living conditions, in this sense, the incorporation of women into paid work presents transformations in the ways of conceiving and exercising practices such as breastfeeding, influencing the construction of their social representations. This article aims to analyze the social representations of breastfeeding and its relationship with gender constructions, of a group of mothers with paid work who use childcare centers at IMSS in Culiacan, Sinaloa. The research approach is qualitative and the method of social representations was used. Six semi-structured interviews were applied to mothers who used their nursing labor rights and a content analysis was performed. The most important findings show the social representation of breastfeeding as: symbol of health-well-being, articulating axis of the family relationship and transgressive-dissident practice. It was evident that gender constructions directly affect the symbolic configuration of the social representations of breastfeeding. It is concluded that the living conditions of these women, their conception in the duty of being a woman-mother, the significance of their body and space, generate ambivalent and dynamic social representations, from which they overcome the conflicts that are presented to them in your breastfeeding practices. This study provides knowledge that supports the need for social co-responsability policies for the promotion of breastfeeding.