BACKGROUND: The birth of the first child forwards the new mother to an individual, family
and social reset in order to deal with self-caring and parenting skills. Many women in postpartum
period report having to deal often with new doubts and/or problems.
OBJECTIVE: Identify the main difficulties reported by mothers during puerperium time.
Compare those mentioned difficulties, between control group and study group.
METHODS: Quasi-experimental design - Control group and study group with 200 primiparous
women (100 women in each group). Participants in the study group were submited to at least
two home visits during the postpartum period.
RESULTS: Chi-square test revealed statistically significant differences between groups, for
participants who did not report difficulties (p=0.021). A larger number of mothers in the
experimental group did not mention difficulties (38%), compared to those belonging to the
control group (23%). The three main difficulties were found:
Understanding child's cry - 53% in the control group and 45% in study group; Child feeding -
29% in the control group and 21% in study group; “Psychological changes” are referred by both
groups in thirdly. Chi-square test shows differences between groups in this variable (p=0.037)
- Control group 27% and study group 15%.
CONCLUSIONS: This investigation demonstrated the relationship between home visit and
expressed difficulties: a higher number of participants followed during puerperium did not
mention difficulties.
For those who mentioned difficulties also the groups show different regarding the difficulty in
dealing with the psychological changes. More mothers from control group mentioned this
problem
