Wellness and Spirituality in Pregnancy

Abstract

Spirituality has been increasingly incorporating maternal health nursing care through the need to understand the pregnant woman as a whole. In this sense, it was intended to explore practices of pregnant women related to spirituality during prenatal surveillance. An exploratory, descriptive, qualitative study was carried out. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 100 pregnant women who lived in six municipalities in the District of Braga in the North of Portugal. The data treatment was based on the content analysis of Bardin (2016). All pregnant respondents reported professing a religion, 96 of which were Catholic. Forty-seven of the interviewees used religious or use of objects in order to protect the good development of their pregnancy and their child. Fear of the evil eye or the evil of envy explains the need to resort to something divine to protect the pregnancy from eventual miscarriage or malformation in the baby. Religiosity and spirituality were sources used to develop wellbeing during pregnancy. Pregnancy entails fears and anxieties and spirituality was considered a coping mechanism, which helped in the transition to being a mother.