Reproductive risk in pregnant women with heart diseases: The living world guiding health care

Abstract

Objective: to understand the meaning of pregnancy for women with heart diseases; to unveil meanings of the worldliness of the being-there-women in reproductive risk in the experience lived/experience of high-risk pregnancy due to heart diseases. Method: this is a qualitative study based on Heidegger’s phenomenology. Seventeen women who got pregnant while suffering from a heart disease were interviewed between July and December of 2014 in a reference facility for maternal risk. Results: the hermeneutic analytic movement allowed the emergence of meaningful units: knowing the risk and planning and ignoring how to avoid it, and getting surprised when finding out pregnancy; telling how they felt physically and emotionally during pregnancy; feeling safe due to the prenatal follow-up routine. The unveiled meanings led to weakness of the participants’ knowledge about the reproductive risk. Conclusion: nurses and health teams should consider the intersubjective care that favors health care comprehensiveness in their clinical practice. Discussions about the perceived risk by the pregnant women should be integrated to prenatal care guidance, positively impacting women’s health. Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology is considered as a reference that allows reaching results of qualitative research in the epistemological field of interest about the human essence through the experiences lived.