RESEARCH ARTICLE
Experiences of Motherhood in University Students in Brazil: A Qualitative Study
Fernanda Amorim1, *, Brunna Maia2, Valéria Melo2, Camila Almeida3, Juliana Magalhães2, Claudia Carvalho1, Magda Viana4, Juscélia Veras2, Cíntia Mendes2, Carolinne Damasceno2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 15
Issue: Suppl-1, M3
First Page: 313
Last Page: 318
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-15-313
DOI: 10.2174/1874434602115010313
Article History:
Received Date: 16/6/2020Revision Received Date: 25/10/2020
Acceptance Date: 28/10/2020
Electronic publication date: 15/12/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
The women’s rise to higher education contrasts with the phenomenon of motherhood, since it instigates changes in various contexts, whether physiological or emotional, and directly affects the way of life and routine of those women, resulting in a constant conflict between motherhood and academic career. In this sense, the student has to restructure responsibilities and behaviors, as well as requires family support and laws that support her in this period.
Objectives:
To describe the experiences of motherhood in university students, and to identify the strategies developed by university students to adapt motherhood with academic routine.
Methods:
This is a descriptive, exploratory and qualitative research carried out in a private University Center in Brazil. The participants were ten Nursing undergraduate students, regularly enrolled and who experienced motherhood during the academic term. Data were collected during August and September 2019, through a recorded interview using a semi-structured form. For the treatment and analysis of the data, the Collective Subject Discourse was used. The study followed the ethical precepts and was approved by the ethics committee (opinion n. 3.419.572).
Results:
The participants’ discourses gave rise to four central ideas: Feelings experienced from the discovery of pregnancy; The discovery of pregnancy and the decision to continue the course; Support relationships as a decisive factor for the non-abandonment of the course and Strategies to reconcile motherhood with academic routine. The main key expressions identified in the discourses were: joy, fear, insecurity, anguish, concern, distress, anger, sadness, interrupting, giving up, taking time off from the course, not taking time off from the course, family support, support from friends, support from the institution, adjusting schedules, studying while my child sleeps, family help, taking the baby to college, storing milk while breastfeeding.
Conclusion:
The analysis of the discourses revealed that the experience of motherhood in the university sphere is marked by a combination of different feelings, and by an important process of adaptations to the new moment, since there is a reflection and indecision about the continuity of the academic trajectory. The reports also highlight the importance of family, institutional and friend support, such as a support network of incentive to the care with the child, as well as the use of strategies to reconcile academic routine with motherhood.
