abstract: 'Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, billions of people were

  asked by their state and local governments not to go to work and not

  leave the house unless they had to. The goal of this qualitative study

  was to collect the lived experiences of a small group of parents and

  lactation professionals in the United States about what it was like to

  feed babies human milk under these conditions of quarantine. Methods

  This project is a social constructionist analysis of lactation

  narratives of 24 parents feeding their children human milk and 13

  lactation professionals. They were interviewed remotely in 2020-21 via

  videoconferencing about their experiences and perspectives on the

  pandemic''s effect on lactation. Additionally, photographs of 16 of the

  parents are provided to visualize their practices and how they chose to

  represent them. Results Four interrelated themes were identified in

  participants'' narratives about how they experienced and made sense of

  human milk feeding during the pandemic: the loneliness of lactation

  during the pandemic, the construction of human milk as a resource to

  cope with the crisis, the (in)visibility of lactation amidst heightened

  multitasking, and the sense of connection created by human milk feeding

  at a time of unprecedented solitude. Conclusions While the pandemic may

  have had both positive and negative effects on lactation, it exposed

  continuing inequities in infant feeding, generating new forms of

  (in)visibility for lactating labor. Going forward, one lesson for policy

  and lawmakers may be that to adequately support lactation, they should

  take cues from the families who had positive experiences during the

  crisis. This would call for systemically overhauling of US laws and

  policies by guaranteeing: universal basic income, paid parental leave

  for at least six months, paid lactation leaves and breaks, affordable

  housing, universal health care, subsidized childcare programs, and equal

  access to high-quality, non-discriminatory, and culturally appropriate

  medical care-including lactation counseling-, among other initiatives.'
affiliation: 'Cohen, M (Corresponding Author), Univ Connecticut, Sch Law, Hartford,
  CT 06105 USA.

  Cohen, Mathilde, Univ Connecticut, Sch Law, Hartford, CT 06105 USA.'
article-number: '22'
author: Cohen, Mathilde and Botz, Corinne
author-email: mathilde.cohen@uconn.edu
author_list:
- family: Cohen
  given: Mathilde
- family: Botz
  given: Corinne
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1186/s13006-022-00451-2
files: []
issn: 1746-4358
journal: INTERNATIONAL BREASTFEEDING JOURNAL
keywords: 'Breastfeeding; Lactation; Pandemic; COVID-19; Gender inequality;

  Parenting; Human milk feeding; Milk sharing; Donor human milk'
language: English
month: MAR 21
number: '1'
number-of-cited-references: '72'
orcid-numbers: Cohen, Mathilde/0000-0002-8882-1211
papis_id: 724b9bb248e2cab64a84fc35cb00d29d
ref: Cohen2022lactationquarantine
times-cited: '3'
title: 'Lactation in quarantine: The (in)visibility of human milk feeding during the
  COVID-19 pandemic in the United States'
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000771542600001
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '3'
volume: '17'
web-of-science-categories: Obstetrics \& Gynecology; Pediatrics
year: '2022'