Experiência de luto de pais de bebês: uma contribuição para a enfermagem

Abstract

An analysis on the mourning experience by parents whose neonate children died in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is provided. A qualitative research based on Martin Heidegger's Existential Phenomenology makes possible the understanding of the event experienced by the mourning subjects. Six parents whose neonate children, hospitalized before their 28-day birthday, died in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a philanthropic health institute in the northwestern region of the state of Paraná, Brazil, were interviewed. The project was approved by the Permanent Committee on Ethics and Research with Humans of the State University of Maringá with authorization number 72/2011. Interviews started in March through June 2011at the homes or at places agreed upon by the parties. The following question was employed to assess the subjects' discourse: What does the death of your newly born child mean to you? Interviews revealed not only the linguistic expressions but also their body expressions and feelings. Their language evidenced the suffering in the wake of mourning for the dead child and the pain could not be neglected by health professionals, especially nurses, who should be prepared to care for these subjects in the face of the death event in their homes. The parents' discourse also showed that the mourning parents desired such care from the nurses not merely at the child's terminality but after the event of death when pain of loss was a daily experience. It should be emphasized the need for capacitating nurses to help the mourning subjects, providing them with a humanized and individualized care while understanding their vicissitudes so that they would construct an authentic type of living with a painful context.