Table 1 Details of the vignettes

Vignette 1

Estelle, aged 16, has a baby aged seven days old. She tells you how she felt in hospital. Now that she is home she still feels the same: "I don't feel confident...What if I'm not doing it (breastfeeding) right, am I going to make her poorly? I'm worrying about things like that."

Vignette 2

Chantelle, aged 17, approaches you and expresses anxiety about her milk supply. Her baby is 3 weeks old. This followed a visit to the baby clinic last week when the following conversation took place: "I wasn't asked how I was feeding. I was asked 'How many ounces is he having?' And I said I breastfeed, but she just asked again 'How many ounces?'"

Vignette 3

Jasmine, aged 14, has a baby, Ben, aged nearly 4 weeks old. She comes to you and says that she is thinking about changing to bottle feeding. She says: "I think that you always feel that you're being watched to see whether you're able to look after your baby. It puts you in a position of being so nervous about whether you're doing it right 'cos the older people are looking at what you're doing. They don't expect you to be able to do it because you're so young."She tells you that she felt this way in hospital and now she feels the same way about feeding out in public.

Vignette 4

Sally, who has a baby, Tyler, aged two weeks old, tells you that she is feeling very tired but she has a very supportive partner who has helped her. She said: "He was so pleased and proud that he could give her a bottle feed of SMA when he came home from work, before she went to bed. I could actually sit there and she was getting fed and I could have a break as well. Strange isn't it? I don't feel so tied down that way but I still want to breastfeed."