Mães de neonatos pré-termo hospitalizados: avaliação do apoio social e da sintomatologia ansiogênica

Social support is an important factor throughout one s life, especially in times of crisis. Premature delivery can be considered a crisis, followed by neonatal hospitalization. This type of birth is associated with elevated anxiety, representing risks to maternal mental health and mother-infant relationship. This research aims to investigate whether a relationship exists between perceived social support and the expression of anxiety in mothers of premature, hospitalized newborns. This is a cross-sectional, correlational study, conducted during the period of April to October 2011, using a convenience sample. The sample consisted of seventy mothers with preterm, hospitalized newborns and seventy mothers of full-term newborns. The instruments used were the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Social Support Scale. The results demonstrated a weak negative relationship between intensity-State Anxiety and emotional support as well as a negative relationship in intensity between low to moderate-Trait Anxiety, social support and its dimensions (material support, emotional, information, interaction positive social and emotional). These suggest that the better the perception of social support, the less severe anxiogenic symptoms will be, and the converse is also true. It is noteworthy, therefore, the importance of social support, as well as the importance of health professionals to be aware not only of the physical health of the newborn, but also the psychosocial aspects that pervade the context of preterm birth followed by hospitalization

A humanização no parto e no nascimento: os saberes e as práticas no contexto de uma maternidade pública brasileira

The practice of medicine related to the gestational processes tend to be organized according to the context and the place of work, being thus dependent of the conditions both social and economical, and of the physical structure and the functionality of the services. The high mortality rate in this process has diminished, since 1986, the study made by the World Health Organization (WHO) as to the technical aspects and the social inequalities that influence this situation in different geographical contexts. This culminated recommendations that proposed the reorientation of the dynamical practice of medicine, with a focus on the safety of maternities. Brazil adopted, in the year 2000, the suggestions of the OMS, emphasizing the humanization as the main reason for these actions. However, this discussion tends to not consider the problems caused by the social inequalities and the epidemiological and social conditionings that define the actions of the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde SUS). In this area, this research seeks to analyze the practices, cares taken, and the universal symbol that promotes and rewards the assistance to the birth of children by the SUS. Besides the analysis of the public documents that deal with this subject, an ethnographic study was developed in a maternity in Natal/RN, considered a model of humanization after receiving the Galba de Araújo prize in 2002. In this stage, the methodological strategies were observed, and the focus of the individual interviews with workers and users of this service. In the analysis of the data, it became evident that the different professional workers and women who gave birth, tend to show concern of the standards the delimit production and reproduction of the practice of medicine, as they favor the absence of a critical posture of the actions destined to the population. Besides this, if became evident that the institutional difficulties associated to the economical, cultural, and political problems also difficult the involvement and the reflection of the workers in favor of assisting changes of the process. There is also a utilization of a perspective prescriptive of humanization in the everyday life of the social workers, without reflection of its meaning. Some workers present, in their statements, a preoccupation with the social and economical aspects that affect the practice of medicine, and with the limitations of the humanization discourse that disarticulates the necessities of those involved in the process of formation, and soon tend to return to the discussion of humanization while a kind practice characterized by the minimization of the interventionist actions. Now the users of the system show themselves before the dynamic of the services, submitting themselves to what is offered while assistance, without questioning and/or reflecting about their usual shortages. Therefore, to think of changes in the know and do of the practice of medicine destined to the birth of children implies reflection on the quotidian production of these practices and of the social contexts that influence the process of assistance in the practice of medicine. Herein it would be possible to predict the appropriation, by different workers concerning their exasperations and necessities, making them active in the pursuit of their rights as citizens