Mães de primeira viagem: gravidez, parto e pós-parto como tríade do ritual de passagem para a maternidade inicial entre mulheres na cidade de maputo

Abstract

The present study explored, from the qualitative approach, pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. The target group are women who were mothers for the first time in Maputo City. These three phases were constructed in the study as composing the three moments of a passage ritual, namely preliminary, preliminary and post-preliminary, where we tried to look at the transition from the social stage of a childless woman to the status of mother. The data that fed the analysis were acquired using semi-structured interviews and informal conversations. For the analysis of this ritual of passing from a woman without a child to a mother, the perspectives of Van Gennep and Victor Turner allowed us to perceive the ritual process that contemplates "separation" - moment of pregnancy (preliminary); “Margin” - time of delivery (injunction); “Aggregation” - postpartum moment (post-injunction). These three moments consolidate the journey that establishes the acquisition of a new social status - being a mother. The study started by asking about what happens during the ritual of passing from a childless mother to a mother? The answer to this question has two dimensions: physical-corporal, in which the woman's body undergoes transformations with the growth of pregnancy. The second dimension is social that happens during the ritual with the modeling of the social behavior of the woman through practices such as: dress, sex, food, hygiene, taking care of the pregnancy, how to sit, adequate position in childbirth and how to take care of the baby in the mother to society. The study concluded that, in this ritual of passage, the logics place women / mothers between taboos and beliefs considered to be harmful or beneficial to the mother, the child and the family such as: the non-practice of sexual relations with another man during pregnancy in order not to mix the baby's blood, an element that reinforces fidelity. Not cooking or salting the food in the first days after giving birth, due to the mother's state of impurity, which is also a measure of hygiene. Do not touch or pick up the baby after the sexual act by the parents or anyone, as they are considered to be people in a hot state; o do not sit in any way after childbirth, as the body is still open and may release vaginal touches when the air comes out; as well as avoid getting your head and hair wet in the bath of the first post-liminal days