Crianças arco-íris: A experiência de maternidade após perda gestacional/neonatal

Abstract

The gestational/neonatal loss can cause significant suffering to the woman. If she becomes pregnant again, she may be influenced in the relationship with the new child (the rainbow baby), due to the loss previously experienced. Thus, the present work aimed to investigate the emotional experience of mothers who, after having experienced a gestational/neonatal loss, had a “rainbow” child. Four women participated, who had children up to three years old, derived from pregnancies after a pregnancy/neonatal loss. Those women were individually interviewed, and the interviews were mediated by the presentation of an interactive narrative as a mediating resource. After each interview, the researcher wrote a psychoanalytic narrative. The set of psychoanalytic narratives and the outcomes of interactive narratives were analyzed psychoanalytically, being organized through the Theory of Fields. Three fields were identified through which it was possible to observe that the participants had particular manifestations in the face of the pain of grief, although all of them blamed themselves, either for feeling responsible for the loss, or for having moved on with new pregnancies. Still, in relation to the maternal care of the rainbow children, it was noted that the participants oscillated between a posture of overprotection and withdrawal, being crossed by the feelings about the lost baby. It is expected to contribute to the health professionals so that they become better able to work with this social group, which in most cases is only the focus of attention (when it is) during the subsequent pregnancy or puerperium gestational.