Breastfeeding is one of the main interventions in reducing child morbimortality, a privileged process to subjectivation, to child development and to prevention of disturbances in child-mother bond, when it is well experienced by the dyad. The study analyzed the psychodynamics involved in early weaning and late weaning, based on the interaction of two mother-child dyads with severe malnutrition, involving babies aged six and 15 months, hospitalized in a teaching institution. Qualitative methods based on psychoanalysis were used, with semi-structured interviews and observations. Early weaning seemed related to difficulties constructing motherhood and bonding; late weaning appeared to reflect an excess of maternal affection or difficulty in accepting the father figure.
breast feeding; weaning; mother-child relations; protein malnutrition; psychoanalysis; qualitative research