“Quedarse madre”. Maternidad y duelo en el proceso de salud-enfermedad-cuidado

Abstract

Objectives. The process of health-disease-care gives meaning to our way of being in the world in the personal relationship with the body that we are and in the interaction with some “others” with whom we live in interdependence. On many occasions, this process has the particularity of being crossed by the critical situation derived from an illness or accident with or without the result of death. In the tension between birth and death, some mothers must redefine themselves after mourning the loss of a child. Methodology. With a mixed methodology between the biographical method, ethnography and narrative medicine we build an integrated model by default in which each informant is in turn a subject who takes charge of his own life and a professional who learns to attend to other people who hold elementary rights such as health, education or justice. Results. From health-disease-care stories we can strengthen learning for after the pandemic. In this process, mental health aspects, when developing psychological autopsies, serve to unravel the pain of “mothers who remain mothers”. Conclusions. The biographical accounts obtained constitute a validated tool in health promotion workshops while serving as valuable ethnographic material as case studies for health empowerment after the coronavirus and for different grieving processes.