O nascimento do pai: envolvimento paterno na gestação, no parto e aos três meses do bebê, no contexto de Salvador/Bahia

Abstract

Various family, cultural, and historical transformations in contemporary society have made the father's role in the family more complex and plural. With these changes happening, it becomes increasingly relevant to study paternal involvement in the transition to paternity. In this sense, the present doctoral thesis has as general objective to investigate, from the perspective of the father, the paternal involvement during the gestation, the delivery and the third month of the baby. To achieve this purpose, the longitudinal qualitative research method was used. 30 men who were about being parents for the first time took part in the research. They resided in Salvador (BA) and were addressed in a private gynecology and obstetrics clinic, located in a middle-upper class neighborhood of Salvador. For the data collection, three semi-structured interview scripts were built; containing open questions, each of them was applied in one of the following moments: (a) the last trimester of pregnancy of the first child; (B) one week after delivery; (C) three months of the baby. The research project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Maternity Climério de Oliveira, whose opinion number was 456,434. The interviews were recorded and held in a place of convenience for the parents and all signed the Term of Free and Informed Consent. The recordings were transcribed and categories were constructed from the answers obtained. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. The main results were: paternal involvement in pregnancy occurred through the desire and affection of the father in relation to the imagined child and the good relationship with the baby's mother. Already in the delivery, the involvement was verified from the first time the father saw the son and he held him on his lap. Finally, when the baby was three months old, the involvement was shown in the different forms of interaction, in the quality of the involvement and in the time available to the child and in the responsibilities acquired when caring for the child. It was concluded that parents were generally involved with their children, both by the desire and in the practice they were quite involved, presenting a growing movement of involvement when considering the three moments of the data collection.