This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted by midwife researchers into women's experience of new motherhood. Data were collected using focus groups involving 55 first-time mothers and analysed using grounded theory method. The analysis produced six categories: 'realizing', 'unready', 'drained', 'aloneness', 'loss' and 'working it out'. The core category, 'becoming a mother', integrates all other categories and encapsulates the process of change experienced by women. Also explained are factors mediating the often distressing experience of becoming a mother. The analysis provides a conceptualization of early motherhood enabling the development of strategies for midwives, nurses and other helping women negotiate this challenge.

Contemporary medical and public health discourses represent breastfeeding as vital to infant development and the motherinfant bond. Little research from a medical or sociological perspective has sought to investigate the qualitative breastfeeding experiences of women. This article draws on a range of feminist perspectives on the body and subjectivity, together with empirical data from a series of interviews with 25 Australian first-time mothers, to theorise the experience of breastfeeding. These women's accounts revealed that, although nearly all of them subscribed vehemently to the dominant discourse of`breast is best', the experience of breastfeeding differed markedly among them. Some of the women experienced breastfeeding as a connected, harmonious and intimate relationship between themselves and their baby. For others, however, the breastfeeding relationship between mother and infant was difficult to reconcile with notions of identity that value autonomy, independence and control. We use insights from feminist philosophy on subjectivity and embodiment to explain why the latter response predominated among our interviewees.

Some participants may find telling their stories to be cathartic, providing them with a sense of relief. Implementing techniques that may be helpful in initiating the interview process can be challenging.

Emotional distress, constrained by traditional notions of masculinity, may explain why depression in men can often be hidden, overlooked, not discussed or 'acted out'. There are implications for the types of questions asked of men to detect depressive symptoms.

Interview data collected in a recent study of first time motherhood were used to explore the experience of breastfeeding. Twenty-five Australian women participated in a series of semistructured interviews begun during late pregnancy and continuing until 6 months postpartum. Discourse analysis was used to examine the transcribed data. The analysis revealed that breastfeeding was central to these women's experience of motherhood. The majority of women were strongly committed to breastfeeding. Their decision to breastfeed was influenced by a range of public and professional discourses. Breastfeeding was also an embodied experience that was difficult to articulate. For some, this embodied experience was connected, harmonious and pleasurable and for others, disruptive, unpleasant, and violent. This paper describes the embodied experience of breastfeeding and highlights the complexity of the relationship between embodied experience and contemporary meanings and context of breastfeeding.