While coping with displacement despair: A healthy child/baby, the pregnant woman’s main yearning.

Abstract

Introduction: Colombia occupies the third place in the world as a country with more displacements approaching two million persons in the last fifteen years and the major percentage corresponds to women. This «feminization» of the displacement, brings with itself the break of couple relations, the loss for the wife of her companion, of the goods and means ofsubsistence turning her into a household keeper. It takes to break the community support networks, the destruction of the social cohesion and of the solidarity altering the collective identity. With relation to health, a high number of displaced pregnant women do not attend pregnancy health controls and their self care during this process is related to the traditions, beliefs and values that they bring with them into the context that the displacement situation awards them. The displacement brings a great cultural heterogeneity related to the previous experiences of these women’s self care and their families’ during pregnancy.
Objective: this research is related to the meaning of the pregnant mother’s self care and her child to be born using a group of displaced women living in Pampas del Mirador neighborhood in the city of Cali, and based in their own beliefs. It tries to discover the dynamics and the way they reconstruct the practices of the care related to pregnancy, within their new social tissue.
Method: Ethno nursing includes deep interviews. Nine displaced pregnant women participated in the survey besides two general reporters. The size of the survey was taken by applying the criteria of data saturation.
Findings: The big concern for women is that the child is born well and this means for them that they will achieve this provided they develop the same care they saw their mothers to practice, their aunts and the great majority of women of their land. They are convinced that in the city everything will be like when they were in the field and that the customs during the period of pregnancy can be similar to those that they know. During pregnancy they realize actions mainly oriented to – «try that the child is well placed» «this means with the little head down placed», «avoid to do a bad force», «maintain the balance of the body between cold and heat», «eat well», «transmit safety and wellbeing to the son» and finally «cultivate the family collaboration and support». The indicated patterns are linked to produce a synergy aimed to achieve that the son is born well. These beliefs, practices and customs related to the maternity, are sometimes considered irrelevant in the care that is provided in the health centers thus generating distrust feelings in the use of these services. To get to know the self care practices of displaced pregnant women forces to an exchange of knowledge that allows to determine which of those practices are important to keep, which to adjust or to negotiate and which to be restructured so that the health and well being of the mother and her son will be the best possible.

Authors

• Luz Ángela Argote Universidad del Valle
• Marta Lucía Vásquez Universidad del Valle