THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF “INFANT” AND “INFANT OBJECTS”

Authors

  • Elâine Cristina Vargas Dadalto
  • Edinete Maria Rosa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5752/P.1678-9563.2020v26n3p879-900

Keywords:

Social representations, Infant, Premature birth, Neonatal intensive care unit, Mother-child relationship

Abstract

The purpose was to identify and compare the structure of preterm newborns
mothers’ Social Representations (SR) of “infant” and “infant objects” during
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit hospitalization and at 12 months of age.
The technique adopted was the evocation of up to five words/expressions
associated with inducing terms, processed by the EVOC-2003 software; 47
mothers participated. During hospitalization, the core of the mothers’ SR of
“infant” showed words such as “love” and “care”, and at 12 months, “love”
and “tenderness”. The SR organizational elements of “infant objects” were
“cradle”, “toy” and “baby-bottle”, and at 12 months, “toy”, “pacifier” and
“baby-bottle”. The organization of these mothers’ SR had love as a basis, showing concern and an inclination towards care due to hospitalization.
After the first year, negative feelings were suppressed, and a deeper enjoyment
of the act of playing was noticed. Mothers, however, had difficulties to keep
breastfeeding going and coping with non-nutritive sucking.

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Published

2021-10-22

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Section

Artigos / Articles / Artículos