Abstracts Psychology

The lived experience of being the mother of a child with chronic feeding difficulties

by Ronelle Hewetson

Includes abstract. This research describes the lived experience of being the mother of a child with chronic feeding difficulties. The study was prompted by questions about how mothers in Cape Town experience their 'caregiving role' and what factors shape their experiences as it relates to the feedign demands of the child. A qualitative phenomenological design was used. Purposive sampling allowed for the identification of information rich participants. Data was collected by in-depth semi-structured interview with 7 mothers residing in Cape Town. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and together with reflective journal entries analysed as per Colaizzi's phenomenological research method of inductive reduction. Two categories and seven esences emerged. The first category depicts a deconstructive process characterised by loss and disempowerment. Deconstruction: "A journey of loss and disempowerment", is made up of three essences 1) Losing the mother dream; 2) Everything changes: living on the margins; and 3) Disempowered: from mother to onlooker. The second category describes a very different process. Reconstruction: "Getting through the brokenness" encompasses four essences, namely 4) Letting go of the dream and valuing the real; 5) Self-empowered: becoming the enabler; 6) Facilitating the journey; and 7) The continuing journey: negotiating balance. The phenomenon of being the mother of a child with chronic feeding difficulties was found to encompass two continuing journeys, as the mothers who participated in this study moved between contradictory feelings of acceptance and denial; and engaged in an ongoing process of finding balance between opposing emotions (strength and insecurity) as well as opposing tasks (mothering and caregiving). Positive and/or negative implications of providing home-based care to a child with a chronic feeding difficulty were not mutually exclusive experiences for the mothers in this study, but often co-occurred.