A substantial body of work on the concept of social support has resulted in many definitions, but none have been accepted as definitive. The lack of consensus about the definition of social support has resulted in a lack of consistency and comparability among studies. More important, the validity of any study attempting to measure or influence social support is undermined by the use of generic definitions, which lack contextual sensitivity. In this article concept analysis is used to evaluate definitions of social support to ascertain their utility for research. The authors argue that a contextualized approach to the definition of social support is necessary to improve clarity in research, and results in interventions or practices that are useful. They also assert that the development of a contextualized definition of social support requires qualitative methods to explore the meaning of social support with groups of people for whom intervention research is ultimately intended.

This paper explores the challenges of interviewing people about sensitive topics. It uses existing literature and the first author's experience of interviewing women traumatised by having an emergency hysterectomy following a severe postpartum haemorrhage. It also highlights the strategies that can assist interviews. Interviewing participants about sensitive topics requires skill and special techniques. Certain research topics have the potential to cause participants and researchers distress and discomfort. Identifying ways to prevent vicarious traumatisation and researcher burnout is imperative to the integrity of the research. Twenty one Australian women took part in in-depth, tape-recorded, face-to-face, email, internet and telephone interviews. This is a methodology paper on the first author's experience of interviewing women on potentially sensitive topics. Some participants may find telling their stories to be cathartic, providing them with a sense of relief. Implementing techniques that may be helpful in initiating the interview process can be challenging.

Contemporary medical and public health discourses represent breastfeeding as vital to infant development and the mother‐infant bond. Little research from a medical or sociological perspective has sought to investigate the qualitative breastfeeding experiences of women. This article draws on a range of feminist perspectives on the body and subjectivity, together with empirical data from a series of interviews with 25 Australian first‐time mothers, to theorise the experience of breastfeeding. These women’s accounts revealed that, although nearly all of them subscribed vehemently to the dominant discourse of ‘breast is best’, the experience of breastfeeding differed markedly among them. Some of the women experienced breastfeeding as a connected, harmonious and intimate relationship between themselves and their baby. For others, however, the breastfeeding relationship between mother and infant was difficult to reconcile with notions of identity that value autonomy, independence and control. We use insights from feminist philosophy on subjectivity and embodiment to explain why the latter response predominated among our interviewees.