Itinerários de cuidado, apoio social e a vivência do aleitamento materno

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to describe breastfeeding experiences of women using the Unified Health System (SUS) of a municipality in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, Brazil. For such, 14 women were interviewed through a methodological perspective of phenomenology that focus on investigating lived experiences. The data gathered made it possible to identify and debate the following categories of analysis: the experience of breastfeeding; divergent narratives about breastfeeding; the care itinerary developed by the mother and the support network. What the narratives showed is that breastfeeding is an activity which involves both singular factors and social, cultural and historical aspects, and that the interviewees are used to demanding the healthcare services for medical assistance as well as asking for help to her families and advices of close friends. The moralization and naturalization of the act of breastfeeding and the reinforcement of it as an ideal maternal conduct of a feminine nature can fog up the relation between the health team and women who breastfeed. The subjective unfolding of physical experience, the work of remodeling her new social status (breastfeeding), the ways in which she interprets and represents the experience of breastfeeding remain invisible. The narratives found reveal experiences of a body that assumes a socially constructed role and reinforce that the context of life should be considered in the approach of breastfeeding in order not to reinforce in women the weight of social responsibility, which is often highlighted in biomedical discourse.