Abstract
ABSTRACT The purposes of the study was to analyze the meanings assigned by the father to the assistance of pre-term infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and to discuss how these meanings influence paternal care. It is a qualitative study with an ethnographic approach, carried out in a neonatal unit in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty-two fathers whose pre-term infants were hospitalized have been interviewed. Data were collected by means of a field logbook, participative observation and semi-structured interviews. Through thematic analysis, the inferred categories were a) father-child proximity and the permanence at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: overcoming obstacles and revealing motivations, b) the inclusion of fathers in caring for pre-term children: limits and possibilities. Nurses should favor the proximity of fathers and newborns to strengthen their relationship. The intensivist care neonatal practice should include strategies to support male parenting in pre-term birth considering the perspective of gender equity.
Highlights
In Brazilian culture, the mother remains the primary companion and caretaker of the hospitalized child,[1] while the father plays the role of provider for the family and maintains more of a distance from the children in hospital situations
This study aims to analyze the meanings given by the father to the care of the hospitalized preterm child in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and discuss how these meanings influence paternal care in the NICU
We can cite, time constraints imposed by the routine of the institution, the obligation to return to work in less than a week after the birth of the child and the absence of the right to paternity leave, as shown in the following statements
Summary
In Brazilian culture, the mother remains the primary companion and caretaker of the hospitalized child,[1] while the father plays the role of provider for the family and maintains more of a distance from the children in hospital situations. Fathers idealize the birth and the first contact with a healthy full-term newborn baby, the birth of a preterm baby is usually unexpected.[3,4] fathers are not prepared for the birth of a preterm newborn, which generates feelings of guilt, frustration and fear arising from the baby’s health status and the separation between mother, father and child, when the baby needs hospitalization.[4,5]. Authors[8] highlight the need to rethink the insertion model for fathers of preterm newborns in the hospitalization process, to promote changes in the routines established for parental participation in the context of the care of the premature newborn and to develop studies on the subject
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