Supporting women with intellectual disabilities in infant feeding decisions: A focus group study

Background: More women with intellectual disabilities are becoming mothers but fewer are known to breastfeed compared with other women. This article reports on the final stage of a three-part UK project aimed at exploring how women with intellectual disabilities are supported to make infant feeding decisions. The first, a scoping review of published literature and resources, explored how women with intellectual disabilities are supported to make infant feeding decisions with a specific focus on the visual images used. In the second, health professionals with experience of working with women with intellectual disabilities were interviewed about their experience in supporting infant feeding decisions. The findings from these studies have been published elsewhere. The final stage, discussed in this article, involved asking women with intellectual disabilities to attend a focus group to discuss the accessibility of currently available infant feeding resources. This was followed by the co-production of an accessible film, to disseminate the findings from all three stages of the completed project. Methods Four women with an intellectual disability participated in a focus group where they were asked to give their views on the accessibility of currently available infant feeding resources as well as on alternative representations of infant feeding. Photo elicitation was used to gather views on a selection of videos, bespoke ‘easy read’ material and several alternative representations of infant feeding. A transcription of the focus group discussion was thematically analysed whilst a critical visual analysis was undertaken of the women's preferred images/resources. Results Two themes were identified from the group discussion: ‘The desire for choice’ and ‘How easy is ‘easy read’?’ Critical visual analysis identified the importance of the story and social setting of the preferred infant feeding image. Conclusions Our findings suggest a need for a suite of resources, avoiding the one-size-fits-all approach and including people with an intellectual disability at every stage of the design and production process. Resources should recognise and embrace differences in terms of understanding, visual literacy and cultural taste, as well as being freely available to support women with intellectual disabilities to make informed infant feeding decisions.