Abstract

DADALTO, Elâine Cristina Vargas  and  ROSA, Edinete Maria. Structure of social representations of "infant" and "infant objects". Psicol. rev. (Belo Horizonte) [online]. 2020, vol.26, n.3, pp. 879-900. ISSN 1677-1168.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5752/P.1678-9563.2020v26n3p879-900.

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.

Keywords : Social representations; Infant; Premature birth; Neonatal intensive care unit; Mother-child relationship.

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