The goal in this AREA grant is to explore and describe the infant feeding style of low income Black women during the first year of their child's life. Description of breast-feeding styles and knowledge about maternal beliefs and values as well as situational factors related to infant feeding practices need to be identified. This information is needed in order to develop interventions to increase both incidence and duration of breast-feeding. Styles of infant feeding includes both practices (breast and bottle feeding, introduction of solids, weaning) as well as values, beliefs and attitudes associated with infant feeding. A cultural-ecological framework will be utilized to study the interrelationship between styles of infant feeding, beliefs, values and situational factors of low income Black women who reside in the Southeastern United States. A naturalistic field study design using ethnographic techniques of intensive interviewing and participant observation will be used to explore and describe styles of infant feeding of 10 low income Black mothers. Through intensive interviews and repeated home visits, it is possible to see how information form outside sources and personal child-rearing experiences influence day to day decisions and actual feeding practices. Data will be obtained during the infant's first year of life. A process of analytic induction will be used to identify patterns and themes from the data. A combination of topological and domain analysis will be used to analyze categories of phenomena and the relationship among categories. Knowledge obtained from this research will be used to design culture specific interventions to promote incidence and duration of breast-feeding for low income Black infants.
