For many new mothers, breastfeeding is no longer only a matter of medical advice. On Instagram, it has hardened into something closer to a moral obligation, and a new study puts Spanish parenting influencers at the center of that conversation.
Researchers at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona analyzed 592 public comments on Instagram posts from five Spanish momfluencer accounts, all run by women who present themselves as authorities on motherhood and breastfeeding. Writing in the journal Media & Jornalismo, they found that exclusive breastfeeding had turned into what the authors call a “symbolic device” and a “marker of maternal success.” In that framing, a mother who couldn’t or didn’t nurse exclusively was seen as doing more than making a personal choice, and some commenters called mothers who used formula lazy or selfish.
Instagram, the study shows, can take a private parenting decision and turn it into a public performance of what it means to be a “good mother.” For many women in those comment sections, falling short of that standard carried a heavy emotional cost.
How Spanish Momfluencers Are Reshaping Breastfeeding Norms
To build their sample, the authors spent two months observing public Instagram accounts run by Spanish women who describe themselves as prescribers of motherhood and breastfeeding, several of them with professional credentials in nursing or midwifery. From five of these accounts, they selected 15 posts that had sparked debate, each with at least 30 comments and 700 likes, then combed through the comments for patterns in how mothers talked about feeding choices, guilt, family support, and social pressure. Beyond what was said outright, they also traced the assumptions and unspoken rules underneath those conversations.
Formula was generally not treated as a legitimate option in these spaces. One post carried a title flatly rejecting the idea that formula feeding is the easy way out, casting it as something mothers turn to only when a health problem forces their hand. Breastfeeding mothers, by contrast, described their own experience in raw terms: exhaustion, pain, and broken sleep, alongside pride and a deep sense of bonding.
Guilt and Sacrifice: Breastfeeding as the “Good Mother” Test
One of the strongest patterns was guilt. Mothers wrote about agonizing over feeding decisions in ways that went well beyond the practical, and several said they pushed through real physical pain and sleep loss mainly out of fear of being judged as bad mothers if they stopped. One commenter recounted breastfeeding her son for two years while waking as many as seven times a night, until the exhaustion tipped into depression and she left her paid job.
Yet many of the same comments recast that suffering as proof of love. Nursing was described as the most rewarding and most sacrificing part of motherhood, even as women admitted how brutal it could be. Pain wasn’t framed as a problem to fix. For a lot of commenters, it read as evidence of devotion.
Criticism of the pressure to breastfeed rarely grew into a broader social or political argument. Most of it stayed personal, framed as one woman’s private struggle rather than a sign of a system that leaves working parents stranded. Spain grants four months of paid maternity leave, while health guidance urges exclusive breastfeeding for six. A handful of commenters flagged that gap, and one argued the government should simply extend paid leave instead of forcing mothers to improvise their way across it. Those structural complaints, though, were the exception.
Fathers on the Sidelines
Another clear finding was how seldom fathers showed up as equal partners. When they did appear, it was usually as helpers rather than people equally on the hook. Some mothers recounted pediatricians framing the father’s job as helping out in other, lesser ways, language that quietly slots him into a secondary role rather than a shared one.
Some comments mentioned fathers getting tired or impatient, but treated it as a scheduling headache rather than a question of shared duty. One mother wrote that her partner blamed breastfeeding for all their relationship troubles, and that the two had slept apart since their baby was two months old. Of the 592 comments studied, only two mentioned any family outside the traditional mother-father setup, and neither drew a single reply.
Source: https://studyfinds.com/breastfeeding-becomes-moral-test-for-mothers-on-instagram-study-finds/
