Non-verbal mother-child communication in conditions of maternal HIV in an experimental environment

Simone De Sousa Paiva,Paulo César De Almeida,Marli Teresinha Gimeniz Galvão,Lorita Marlena Freitag Pagliuca

doi:10.1590/s0104-11692010000100007

Simone De Sousa Paiva, Paulo César De Almeida + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s0104-11692010000100007

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Abstract

Non-verbal communication is predominant in the mother-child relation. This study aimed to analyze non-verbal mother-child communication in conditions of maternal HIV. In an experimental environment, five HIV-positive mothers were evaluated during care delivery to their babies of up to six months old. Recordings of the care were analyzed by experts, observing aspects of non-verbal communication, such as: paralanguage, kinesics, distance, visual contact, tone of voice, maternal and infant tactile behavior. In total, 344 scenes were obtained. After statistical analysis, these permitted inferring that mothers use non-verbal communication to demonstrate their close attachment to their children and to perceive possible abnormalities. It is suggested that the mothers infection can be a determining factor for the formation of mothers strong attachment to their children after birth.

Highlights

Both pregnancy and motherhood involve important changes in women’s lives, which demand successive and long-term adaptations[1].Like any developmental crisis, pregnancy unbalances a person’s lifecycle[2]
HIV-positive mothers use non-verbal communication (NVC) to interact with their children, whom they are intimately attached to, probably due to both the desire to have them, challenging the disease, and the guilt they feel because they generated a child in a risk situation
The child’s infection would be a seond and possibly more painful loss

Summary

Introduction

Pregnancy unbalances a person’s lifecycle[2]. This unbalance can be greater or smaller depending on how the crisis is experienced. For women with HIV/AIDS, the particularities of seropositive status are added to the unbalance of bearing a child[3] Because this crisis period is more intensive for HIV-positive women than it usually is for pregnant women, the relation with the child can be impaired in this process. When she discovers that she has a disease that can jeopardize the baby, this can arouse feelings of anxiety and guild in the future mother[4], as she hopes the child will be born healthy

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