Background: Although the benefits of breastfeeding to six months are well-established, only about half of
Australian women succeed. The factors associated with successful breastfeeding are rarely translated
into effective interventions. A new educational and support program, called the Milky Way program has
been demonstrated to be effective in supporting women to achieve prolonged breastfeeding. In the Milky
Way program, breastfeeding is considered an embodied performance which requires an engaged
combination of body, mind and spirit. This paper aims to explain how the two theories that informed the
program were used to better enable women’s long term breastfeeding success.