Agentic infants, eating and responsive fathers: Home visits in the Swedish child health services

Nurses in the Swedish child health services conduct a home visit that focuses on newly-born infants. This video ethnographic study explores infant eating and breastfeeding as part of home visits, in a societal context characterized by involved fatherhood. Three examples from home visits allows us to discuss infant eating and the relevance of fathers for infants and breastfeeding mothers. Infants, who are breastfeeding, calls for a type of involved fatherhood that is responsive to mothers and the needs and wants of infants. Taken together, our analysis outlines how agentic infants who eat implicates father–mother involvement and a collaborative approach to professional questions of infant eating and breastfeeding. This study adds to research on infant eating and parenthood by exploring home visits as a key situation in child health care.