Adolescent mothers with babies in neonatal ICU: phenomenological reflections on life and death

Abstract

Adolescent motherhood is a relevant subject for the reality of health services in Brazil, considering that this phenomenon has an important impact on adolescents' lives. Children of adolescent mothers may be a potential audience for the Neonatal Intensive Care Units, a setting of strong emotions, where mothers are facing the illness and death of their babies. This study aims to understand the experience of motherhood for adolescent mothers of infants hospitalized in Neonatal ICU, from the heideggerian Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The sample is composed of five adolescents aged 15 to 19. The construction of the data came from a triggering question: How is it for you to be a teenager and the mother of a baby hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit? The analysis was based on the heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology. The narratives of adolescents shed light on some facets of the phenomenon under study: the place of family relationships; the ruptures and changes arising from motherhood; the fear raised by the neonatal ICU environment; becoming a mother by the child care; the presence of religion as a defense and the fear of dealing with the finitude of the baby.