Although several efforts to promote breastfeeding have been implemented worldwide, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life remains low. One of the factors responsible for this trend is the widespread sales and marketing of breast-milk substitutes. In this context, the present work aimed at exploring mothers and health professionals' social representations of breastfeeding and infant formula. The study was conducted in Montevideo (Uruguay), as part of the periodic assessment performed by the Uruguayan government to monitor the marketing of breast-milk substitutes according to the OMS/UNICEF NetCode toolkit. A total of 330 mothers of children under 24 months old and 154 health professionals were recruited at 33 health care facilities. Participants were asked to complete two word association tasks, one with breastfeeding and the other with infant formula. Inductive coding was used to classify the responses into categories and dimensions. The structure of the social representations was explored considering the frequency of mention and the average rank of appearance of the categories. Results showed that mothers' social representations mainly positioned breastfeeding as a feeding practice, whereas infant formulas were mainly perceived as a complement to breast-milk that provides support to mothers. In the case of health professionals, the social representations of breastfeeding and infant formulas were in line with scientific evidence and health recommendations. These results suggest that efforts to promote breastfeeding should focus on raising public awareness of the risks associated with breast-milk substitutes and on overcoming the systemic barriers to breastfeeding, particularly among working mothers.

中文翻译：

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母乳喂养和婴儿配方奶粉的社会表征：一项与母亲和卫生专业人员的探索性研究，为政策制定提供信息

尽管在世界范围内已经采取了一些促进母乳喂养的努力，但在生命的前 6 个月内纯母乳喂养的流行率仍然很低。造成这一趋势的因素之一是母乳代用品的广泛销售和营销。在此背景下，目前的工作旨在探索母亲和卫生专业人员对母乳喂养和婴儿配方奶粉的社会表征。该研究是在蒙得维的亚（乌拉圭）进行的，作为乌拉圭政府根据 OMS/UNICEF NetCode 工具包监测母乳替代品营销的定期评估的一部分。在 33 个卫生保健机构共招募了 330 名 24 个月以下儿童的母亲和 154 名卫生专业人员。要求参与者完成两个单词联想任务，一种是母乳喂养，另一种是婴儿配方奶粉。归纳编码用于将响应分类为类别和维度。考虑到提及频率和类别出现的平均排名，探索了社会表征的结构。结果表明，母亲的社会表征主要将母乳喂养定位为一种喂养方式，而婴儿配方奶粉主要被认为是对母乳的补充，为母亲提供支持。就卫生专业人员而言，母乳喂养和婴儿配方奶粉的社会代表性符合科学证据和健康建议。