Caring as a potential existential refuge from intimate partner violence during the breastfeeding period: a reflective lifeworld study.

Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) during the breastfeeding period endangers women's health and well-being. From a caring science perspective, it may be understood as suffering, potentially reduced through caring. This study aims to describe the meaning of caring, as experienced by women exposed to IPV during the breastfeeding period.

Methods: Nine women with experience of IPV during the breastfeeding period participated in lifeworld interviews, analyzed phenomenologically following the methodological principles of reflective lifeworld research (RLR).

Results: Caring, as experienced by women exposed to IPV during the breastfeeding period, means a potential existential refuge, further described by the constituents: an encounter requiring mutual invitation and trust; an opportunity to rediscover oneself when reflected in another's gaze; being met with insight influences the experience of exposedness; the possibility to get a break from exposedness; and being alleviated from loneliness when confirmed.

Conclusions: For care to be caring in this context it needs to be lifeworld-led and based on insights into the existential situation of breastfeeding women exposed to IPV. Through an encounter of mutual invitation and trust, caring has the potential to be an existential refuge, enabling rest, confirmation, reflection and escape from loneliness.