90% of pregnant women in Japan prefer to breastfeed their babies and midwives give them guidance on how to start and keep the cycle of their breastfeeding. However, only insufficient investigation has been done into the last stage of the cycle, especially mothers' feelings when they are going to stop breastfeeding.
This study is based on the observation of midwives' care and guidance for 8 mothers in a municipal hospital in Tokyo who tried to stop breastfeeding. This observation was done 22 times and the mothers' complaints were analyzed into 356 topics according to their contents.
These were roughly classified into 3 categories: 1) the mothers felt perplexed with stopping breastfeeding, 2) they came to terms with such completion of breastfeeding and 3) they again became more and more aware of being a woman.
The feelings of the women who tries to put an end to breastfeeding changes as time passes. Such changes are processes in which mothers accommodate themselves to such termination. This is an important period for both mothers and children in which they have to create a new and appropriate relationship with each other.
Therefore the study suggests that mothers accept the last stages of breastfeeding, feeling various ambiguities. The process also establishes a new mother-child relationship.