Maternidade na adolescência: significados e repercussões

From evidence of an existing divergence of opinion among professionals and adolescents using the prenatal and delivery services at a Public Health Unit, aimed to study meanings and consequences of adolescent motherhood among 26 adolescent mothers living in Felipe Camarão, low income district of Natal, capital do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte. Living in a peripheral neighbourhood with a high rate of adolescent mothers in relation to the total new-born, those girls, with offspring among 8 and 12 months age, during interview and focus groups, expressed a different appreciation of their experience than the hegemonic idea among professionals that considers pregnancy and motherhood as unwanted or undesired. With age among 15 and 20 years old, having 53,8% initiated sexual activity before being 15 years old, revealed that the pregnancy was desired in 73,1% of cases, but showing at the same time a social context marked by strong gender oppression and lack of opportunities as consequence of social class deprivation. Life projects, almost always limited to the constitution of a traditional nuclear family, with a purveyor father and care giver mother, appears with very limited possibilities: 46,2% already lived with her partner before becoming pregnant and for 50% of the participants, the birth of the child did not provoke changes in plans and projects. Lack of economical recourses and precarious public services available, together with an idealized maternity role seems to produce extra apprehension among those girls, resulting in frustration and disillusion. As a fact, 92,3% of those adolescents would recommend other adolescent to postpone the maternity project