Purpose

Many mothers face breastfeeding challenges that professional healthcare lacks the capacity to address, which can evoke exposedness and vulnerability. In Sweden, the non-profit Breastfeeding Support Organisation provide breastfeeding peer support. The aim is to deepen the understanding of the meaning of peer support caring, as experienced by breastfeeding peer support mothers.

Method

This study adopts a Reflective Lifeworld Research approach. Twelve lifeworld interviews with peer support mothers in the Swedish Breastfeeding Support Organisation was conducted.

Results

The essential meaning is described as an existential and embodied presence. This is further illuminated through the constituents; embodied knowing awakens caring, embracing the breastfeeding story, transcending time and space, being an anchored companion, and finding an authentic way of being.

Conclusions

Breastfeeding can evoke existential anxiety—feelings of homelessness and uncanniness—that awaken a desire for what Heidegger calls Care: a fundamental mode of being marked by engaged, reciprocal concern for existence. In this study, peer support caring is explored as a voluntary caregiving practice. When this practice embodies elements of Care, it becomes existential caring—a transferable form of care that fosters existential health and wellbeing, meaning and authenticity. Existential caring may enrich professional care, where structural limitations affect breastfeeding support.

In 2008, Sweden introduced a policy change to limit the number of days for sickness benefits (SB). This study aimed to elucidate the characteristics of those who reached the maximum entitlement period for receiving sickness benefits (MEPSB) and their future main source of income. Methods: All 5,309,759 individuals, aged 20–63 and residents of Sweden in 2009 were followed from July 2008 to July 2010 regarding SB-days and date of MEPSB and then categorised into three groups: I) no SB-days, II) ongoing SB-days, and III) MEPSB. Mean numbers of SB-days 2.5 years before and 2 years after the policy change and main source of income in 2011 were assessed. Associations between sociodemographic factors, occupation and paid work as main source of income were estimated by odds ratio (OR). Results: A total of 0.7% reached MEPSB in 2010. The mean numbers of SB-days before and after the policy change were higher in the MEPSB group than in the other two groups. In the MEPSB group, 14% had their main source of income from paid work in 2011; this was more common among women born in Sweden (OR = 1.29), people living with a partner and children (women OR = 1.29; men OR = 1.48), and those with occupations representing high educational levels. Conclusions: One out of seven individuals with MEPSB in 2010 had their main source of income from paid work in 2011, although they had a long-term SB before and after the policy change. Further research is warranted to address the long-term effects of this policy change.

Den svenska arbetslinjen har under senare år genomgått omfattande och genomgripande förändringar. Förändringar som sammantaget kan sägas bidra till förskjutningar i upp- fattningar omkring arbete som rättighet eller skyldighet och i förlängningen frågor som rör individens eget ansvar. Hur vi kan förstå och förklara förändringarna, vilken logik representerar de samt vilka tänkbara konsekvenser får det för personer med funktions- nedsättning att komma in på arbetsmarknaden är föremål för analys i det följande. Annorlunda utryckt: Hur inkluderande är den nya arbetslinjen?

Den svenska arbetslinjen har under senare år genomgått omfattande och genomgripande förändringar. Förändringar som sammantaget kan sägas bidra till förskjutningar i uppfattningar omkring arbete som rättighet eller skyldighet och i förlängingen frågor som rör individens eget ansvar. Hur kan vi förstå och förklara förändringarna, vilken logik representerar de samt vilka tänkbara konsekvenser får det för personer med funktionsnedsättning att komma in på arbetsmarknaden? Annorlunda uttryckt: Hur inkluderande är den nya arbetslinjen?