Breastfeeding and Mental Health Training

This Breastfeeding and Mental Health Training aims to cover a training gap in the field of breastfeeding, providing a rigorous evidence based update on topics such as the psychobiology of breastfeeding, the neurobiology of bonding, maternal psychology and detection and treatment of maternal or infant mental disorders, as well as alterations in the mother-baby relationship in the context of breastfeeding. We will give a deep insight on how to help and encourage breastfeeding in situations of stress or personal or family psychic suffering, in the understanding of how they influence or interfere with the psychological and psychopathological processes in breastfeeding and in the treatment of these conditions.

Despite the scientific, medical and social consensus regarding the benefits of breastmilk and the benefits of breastfeeding for the health of mothers, newborns and small children, the current rates of breastfeeding in the Western world are far from the recommended by the WHO (World Health Organization) or the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEPED). Although a majority of women wish to exclusively breastfeed their babies after birth, there are still few who actually manage to achieve their goals satisfactorily.

Traditionally, breastfeeding promotion has been focused on making visible the benefits for mothers and babies. However, less has been done to deepen into the personal reasons that underlie early weaning. Although we know about the intimate, emotional and sexual dimension of the experience, the psychological aspects of breastfeeding are often omitted in the training received by professionals who attend these mothers. This omission leads to the situation that when mothers present difficulties or psychic suffering during postpartum, these needs are rarely detected or attended. In fact, neither the IHAN (Spanish Unicef program promoting Babyfriendly hospitals), nor the 10 steps program specifically consider mental health as an issue, nor do they offer specific training on how to care for mothers who present psychopathology during the perinatal period or related pathologies (Vanderkruik, Lemon, & Dimidjian, 2015).

Goals:

• To provide knowledge for mental health care professionals about the psysiology of breastfeeding, as well as about the main difficulties that may hinder breastfeeding.
• To provide knowledge in perinatal psychology, such as postpartum psychology and possible psychopathological conditions during postpartum to healthcare professionals who care for nursing mothers.
• To offer tools for an effective breastfeeding support in an individualized way, taking into account the psychosocial nature of breast-feeding.
• To offer tools for the treatment of postpartum maternal mental disorders in nursing mothers.