Promotion of the Affective Bond between Mother and Preterm Newborn: Perceptions and Actions of a Multi-Professional Team

Abstract

The initial relationship between the newborn and the parents are the prototype of all future social relationships. The Norm of Humanized Attention to the Low Weight Newborn – Kangaroo Method support that the health team should prioritize the approximation between the newborn and the parents, minimizing the impacts of separation, and favoring the formation and strengthening of affective bonds. The objective was to investigate the perception and actions of the multiprofessional team in the promotion of affective bonding between mother and preterm newborn in a neonatal intensive care unit. This is a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory research, in which we used a semi-structured interview conducted with 8 professionals from different areas of a multiprofessional team. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed according to Bardin’s thematic content analysis. The multiprofessional team has direct participation in the affective bonding between mother and the preterm newborn. The actions guided by the Kangaroo Method, as: reception, maternal involvement in care, communication and qualification of care are configured as catalyst processes in the formation and strengthening of affective bonds. There is a need of a theoretical deepening beyond the preterm newborn initial physiological needs, that is, it is necessary to qualify the multiprofessional team actions and to stimulate interventions based on the formation and strengthening of the affective bonds, understanding the basis of the subject’s subjective constitution.