| Summary: | Experiential accounts of fathers of breastfed babies have received little attention in the literature. The aim of this interpretative study is to explore the nature of the everyday experience of being the father of a breastfed baby. The study is a longitudinal hermeneutic phenomenological one using philosophical tenets of Schleiermacher and Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Volunteer first-time fathers enrolled in the study. Individual interviews were completed during the prenatal period and throughout the first six months after birth. Group interviews with the men were conducted when the baby was approximately one year old. The interpretation developed from movement back and forth between varied layers of text following van Manen’s method of interpretation as textual writing. Readers are invited to accompany the researcher on her journey uncovering the role of fathers and in learning about hermeneutic phenomenology. Everyday experience of fathers of breastfed babies appeared more complex and fluid than that suggested by the scant empirical literature. Experience was found to be closely linked to the external reality of disembodiment characterised as, “it’s her body and our baby”. This external reality is interpreted in view of three varying belief systems about breastfeeding - “Breast is Best and Formula is Acceptable”, “Breast is Best and It’s Her Decision” - and “Breast is Best and It’s Our Baby”. The fathers’ activities are aimed at making breastfeeding work and underlying these activities a desire to be recognised as an important part of decisions surrounding breastfeeding could be discerned. Fathers of breastfed babies are attuned to the mother and baby’s experience and nurture their partners so they can nourish their babies. Concomitantly, fathers interpret their relationship with a breastfed baby as being a product of time spent with baby rather than feeding. This thesis calls into question the “taken for granted” nature of our knowledge of fathers of breastfed babies. Implications for clinicians, managers, policy makers, educators and researchers are discussed. It is suggested that hermeneutical phenomenology offers a rewarding way for nurses to study everyday lived experiences while maintaining the sense of wholeness integral to the nursing discipline.
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