Abstract

MEIRELES, Ana  and  COSTA, Maria Emília. The pregnant body, the relationship with woman's own mother, the perception of change and the mother-child relationship. Psicologia [online]. 2004, vol.18, n.2, pp.75-98. ISSN 0874-2049.  https://doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v18i2.431.

This paper presents a study of exploration of the experience of the pregnancy, as a contribution to the understanding of the body experience's role in the significant relationships that adults establish and their psychological development. So we evaluate the perception of personal change, the relationship with the own mother and the relationship with the baby in the pregnancy, besides the evaluation of the experience of the pregnant body. For that, the Maternal-Fetal Attachment Scale (MFA - Cranley et al., 1981-1993) and a new pregnancy questionnaire (QAG -Questionário de Avaliação da Vivência da Gravidez) were used with 329 pregnant women in the three different pregnancy stages, evaluating their relationship with the unborn baby, the experience of the pregnant body, the relationship with their own mother and their perception of personal change with the pregnancy. The QAG and the MFA were tested according to the pregnancy stages, the parity, the marital status, the pregnancy planning and the social support. The association among the mother-baby relationship and the experience of the pregnancy was also tested, finding a very significant correlation among these dimensions, standing out the values obtained for the experience of the pregnant body. These results are discussed considering the body experience role in relation to identity development in the processes of the acquisition of the maternal role, and of the construction of the mother-child relationship during pregnancy, being emphasized their potentialities for the psychological intervention.

Keywords : Gravidez; relação mãe-bebé; corpo grávido; desenvolvimento da identidade materna.

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