Postpartum home visits

Abstract

The relevance of this topic is justified by the importance of family health care and maternity support as “the aims of families health care in pregnancy are not only a healthy pregnancy as well as a healthy newborn and confident and prepared parents in their new roles” (Rice, 2004: 412). This is a quantitative, descriptive, co-relational and transversal study which aims to acknowledge the existence of a relationship between the home visit’s assessment and some variables (socio-demographic and obstetric). The sample comprised 175 postpartum women with an age average of 28.47 entered in a Health Unit of Custom Care - Unidade de Cuidados Saúde Personalizados (UCSP) from Resende, Lamego and Santa Marinha do Zêzere as also in a Family Health Unit - Unidade de Saúde Familiar (USF) - Douro Vita, Portugal. The data compilation enables us to do a socio demographic and obstetric description which includes the Postpartum Home Visit’s, which was made and validated for this purpose. The data compilation instrument was applied in our first home visit in a postpartum period. The results suggest that the variables age, education and the number of previous pregnancies influence the postpartum home visits’ assessment. This way, the older mothers who attended the secondary education, who had three previous pregnancies are the ones that give a better assessment to the postpartum home visits’. From the obtained results we conclude that the nursing intervention together with the postpartum woman and her family in her context contributes to a better adjustment of the nursing care and allows the couple and the family to express their difficulties and feelings. We believe that the home visit to the postpartum mother/newborn and family are a supporting and helping strategy which provides support and advice and thereby allows a better adjustment to parenthood.