Motherhood, object relations and breast-feeding duration

Breast-feeding is an important indicator of the mother–child relations and is in the forefront above all in the first six months postpartum. The mother, having a greater and more complex role in the relation, enters the relation with her previous experiences that form the ways in which she establishes intimate relationships and experiences her own role as a mother. The goal of the study was to illuminate a part of complex breast-feeding background from the mother's perspective. The Test of Object Relations (TOO; Žvelc, 2000) and adapted Experiencing Self as a Mother Scale (Bogataj, 2002) were used. Eighty-two primiparous mothers were included in the study which was oriented on duration of breast-feeding until the baby's sixth month. The mothers were divided in five groups. Factor analysis of adjectives of the Experiencing Self as a Mother Scale gave three factors during pregnancy and four factors six months postpartum. The results of the research confirmed that breast-feeding has complex background and indicated the factors eventually linked with its termination: mother's narcissism and her experiencing of the symbiotic relation