Sarah Holdren ‘18, Professor Cynthia Fair and UNC Maternal and Child Health Assistant Professor Aunchalee Palmquist have published an article in the journal Social Science and Medicine.
Elon alumna Sarah Holdren ‘18, Public Health Studies Professor Cynthia Fair and UNC Maternal and Child Health Assistant Professor Aunchalee Palmquist have published an article in the journal Social Science and Medicine detailing research into the experiences of mothers caring for their infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Holdren, an Honors Fellow and Lumen Scholar, collaborated with both of her Lumen mentors, Professor Cynthia Fair, department chair of Public Health Studies, and Assistant Professor Aunchalee Palmquist, now a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to analyze the narratives of 17 women whose very-low-birth-weight babies were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Narrative analysis revealed mothers experienced significant physical and emotional trauma heightened by separation from their baby and challenges with lactation. Women used embodied strategies to cope with the trauma and fight marginalization.
The article titled, “It was all taken away”: Lactation, embodiment, and resistance among mothers caring for their very-low-birth-weight infants in the neonatal intensive care unit, was published in the January 2020 volume of Social Science & Medicine.