The purpose of this study was to describe maternal coping effort. The sample was composed of 30 mothers of infants hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit. Descriptive and correlational statistics were used to determine maternal coping effort and the maternal factors that may be associated with coping effort. Results of the study showed that a majority of the mothers exerted a great amount of effort to cope with situations encountered in the NICU. Maternal age, marital status, gravidity and parity, mode of delivery and ethnicity did not prove to associate significantly with coping effort. The results of this study are significant to nursing practice in the confirmation of the high degree of maternal coping associated with the hospitalization of an infant in the NICU.

Mothers who have an infant with severe congenital heart disease (CHD) face an uncertain and emotionally challenging postpartum period as their baby is hospitalised and undergoes life-saving cardiac surgical treatment. There are many potential risk factors to mother-infant bonding, that is, the emotional tie a mother develops with her baby, in the context of infant illness. Having an infant with a diagnosis of severe CHD could be seen as a threat to the mother's experience of bonding. However, there is limited understanding about the maternal perception of bonding with an infant with severe CHD. This study aimed to explore mothers' bonding with their infant with severe CHD throughout antenatal, perinatal and postnatal periods and how they coped with any challenges to this bond. Interviews were conducted with eight mothers of infants aged between eight and fifteen months with severe CHD, who were recruited from a children's hospital and who were diagnosed either antenatally or postnatally. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to identify themes across the mothers' accounts. Four superordinant themes were identified: ‘An Emotional Start to Motherhood and the Mother-Infant Bond', ‘Losing Control in the Context of CHD', ‘Keeping Connected to the Baby' and ‘Moving on Together'. The findings identify mother-infant bonding as a process that can withstand challenges such as maternal-infant separation, potential loss of the infant and maternal feelings of disconnection from the baby. Practical strategies were used by mothers to maintain their bond with their infant following diagnosis and during hospitalisation. These included being close to their infant and taking over caregiving duties from the nurses. Mothers described strength and resilience from the experience and a process of increasingly feeling closer to their infant. Several potential research implications and clinical recommendations for healthcare professionals are suggested.

This study aimed to investigate teenage mothers’ experiences of motherhood and their internal representations of their infants and the relationship between them. In addition, this study aimed to investigate whether there was a connection between teenage mothers’ experiences of parenting and their internal representations of their infants and the relationship between them. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, adapted from the Parent Development Interview and the Working Model of the Child Interview, four teenage mothers from Alexandra were interviewed. The data collected from these interviews was analysed using narrative analysis through the hermeneutic lens of psychoanalytic attachment theory. From the analysis, this study found that teenage mother’s experiences of motherhood were marked by challenge. The two main challenges faced by these young mothers were the tension they experienced between their identities as teenagers and their identities as mothers, and their struggle to provide for their infants and feel like good enough mothers. In addition, this study found that teenage mother’s internal representations of their infants included a representation of both the good baby and the bad baby, but, with the exception of one mother, their representations tended to remain split and the mothers seemed defended against their representations of the bad baby. In terms of their representations of the relationship between them, this study found that these teenage mothers’ representations of their relationship with their infants was lacking. These representations either consisted of a superficial representation of a good relationship between mother and infant, or no relationship at all. Finally, this study found that teenage mother’s experiences of motherhood and their internal representations of their infants and the relationship between them were connected. A number of factors that were found to influence both their experiences and their internal representations include their own mental states, their memoires of their own childhood and their representations of their caregivers, as well as the levels of social support they received. The study therefore concluded that teenage mothers’ experiences of motherhood and their internal representations of their infants and the relationship between them were connected, however further research is required to establish the causal relationship between these factors.

Orientador: Jorge Luís Ferreira Abrão / Banca: Maria Luísa Louro de Castro Valente / Banca: Manoel Antônio dos Santos / Resumo: A maternagem é a maneira como a mulher se coloca a disposição de seu filho de maneira a atender as suas demandas, na medida em que desempenham as três funções essenciais descritas por Winnicott. Diversos fatores podem facilitar ou dificultar a relação de maternagem no início da vida do bebê. Assim, este trabalho se propôs compreender a experiência de maternagem em mães de bebês prematuros cuja relação inicial se dá por intermédio dos aparatos hospitalares, que de acordo com estudos, seria um dificultador do estabelecimento da função de maternagem. A abordagem psicanalítica, tendo como base o pensamento Winnicottiano auxilia a pensar estas questões a partir de conteúdos clínico-qualitativos. Participaram da pesquisa cinco mulheres que se encontravam nos alojamentos conjuntos do Hospital Regional de Assis em decorrência do nascimento prematuro de seus bebês. Com cada participante foi realizada a entrevista semi-estruturada e a aplicação do procedimento de Desenho-Estória com Tema. Os resultados obtidos com a aplicação das técnicas foram analisados por meio do método de livre inspeção (DET) e posteriormente todo o conteúdo foi submetido à análise de conteúdo temática. Os dados analisados indicaram que apesar da possibilidade de a mulher estar perto de seu bebê no hospital, dificuldades em se reconhecer como mães e de desempenhar a função de maternagem foram observadas. Foram elencadas quatro categorias temáticas de análise do conteúdo (a mãe que se apresenta; o parto prematuro; ser mãe diante da hospitalização do filho e; os reflexos do alojamento conjunto na maternagem), que contribuíram para a compreensão das dificuldades inerentes ao nascimento prematuro no exercício da maternagem, ainda que os alojamentos conjuntos tenham como objetivo favorecer o contato da mãe com o bebê / Abstract: Mothering is considered the way how a woman can put herself available to her child in a way to attend his/her demands, making the three essential functions described by Winnicott. Some factors can make the mothering relation easy or difficult in the beginning of the baby‟s life. Thus, this work intended to comprehend the mother care experience in premature babies mothers‟ which relation is possible through the hospital apparatus, that according to studies, for the fact that the baby-mother relationship is not close, the hospital would be a complicator to the establishment of the mothering. The psychoanalytical approach, based on Winnicot thoughts help us to think these points from clinical and qualitative contents. In this research five women that were in the rooming of the Regional Hospital at Assis made part, because of the premature birth of their child. With each participant was realized a semi structured interview and the drawing-story with theme application. The obtained results with the techniques‟ application were analyzed using the free inspection method (Draw-Story with Theme) and after all the content were submitted to theme contents analyses. The analyzed data showed that besides the possibility to the women be close to her babies, they show difficulties to recognize themselves in the motherhood and to perform the mothering function. Four thematic categories of content analysis were listed (the mother who presents herself; the premature birth, being a mother compared to the child‟s hospitalization and; the reflexes of the roming in the mothering), that contributed to the comprehension of the inherents difficulties to the premature birth inte the mothering exercise, even though the rooming‟s goal is to make the mothers‟ and babies‟ contact easy / Mestre

No description available.

Mother-infant separation (MS) is an early-life stressor which affects stress-related processes in brain and behaviors in rats. Changes associated with MS were investigated in the brain and behavior of two rat strains, Holtzman and Sprague-Dawley, at three points in development. The hypothesis was that MS would affect the prefrontal cortex (PFC), both in metabolic capacity and PFC-related behaviors across the lifespan. First, cytochrome oxidase (CO), an enzyme that directly reflects metabolic capacity in the brain, was quantified in two-week old Holtzman rats after MS, early handling (EH), or nohhandled controls. MS reduced CO activity in the PFC of female rats but not males. Path analysis of the CO data revealed a stronger descending influence of the medial PFC, a region associated with behavioral inhibition, in females; contrasted with a stronger descending influence of the lateral PFC, a region associated with motor output, in males. Second, adolescent rats were tested in the open field to assess MS effects on ambulatory activity and impulsivity. MS increased ambulatory activity and impulsivity in Sprague-Dawley males. In a separate study, MS reduced ambulation and impulsivity in Holtzman rats in the open field. Brains of Sprague- Dawley adolescents showed reduced PFC thickness in MS males relative to EH males. Across groups, male adolescents had reduced metabolic capacity relative to females in the PFC. Finally, extinction of Pavlovian fear, a PFC-related behavior, was not affected by sex or separation group in adult Holtzman rats. Across groups, males showed greater fear renewal than females, despite the extinction process. An unexpected finding was that EH attenuated fear renewal. Findings from these MS studies in Sprague-Dawley rats are similar to human psychopathology of ADHD, which is reported more frequently in young males and is related to PFC dysfunction. The opposite behavioral findings between Holtzman and Sprague-Dawley rats suggest that genetic predisposition can affect long-term responses to the same early-life stressor. Knowledge about baseline sex differences in brain and behavior gained from the studies on Holtzman rats may help future research to consider sex-dependent effects of disruptions during development, as it appears that some basic neural substrates are sexually dimorphic. / text

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing in Advanced Practice

Not available / text

No description available.

No description available.