Online in the puerperium: interactions and dynamics of a virtual group
puerperium, support network, virtual support, coronavirus
The puerperium is a phase of a woman's life marked by changes, physical and biopsychosocial challenges. In view of the current world pandemic situation caused by the new coronavirus, this period is facing new challenges, and the mother-child binomial can be characterized as a group particularly vulnerable to this reality. Thus, the present study, with a qualitative approach, of an exploratory character, analyzed six months of interactions of a virtual Whatsapp group, composed of 9 women, users of the basic health services of six Family Health Strategies in the Municipality of Currais Novos / RN. The investigated time period ran from January to June 2020, starting when the women were in the last weeks of pregnancy and following the entire puerperium, mostly occurring concurrently with the pandemic state. The corpus resulting from the interactions was prepared, coded, revised and corrected and then submitted to the Descending Hierarchical Classification Analysis of the IRAMUTEQ software. The next step was the content analysis of the material obtained, according to Bardin. The exploration of two dimensions obtained in this process, called "Health Care" and "Daily routine of the puerperium" revealed, among other things: the negative impact of the pandemic by COVID-19 on access to basic services of the public health network specifically for this stage of life; the difficulties inherent in the routine and demand for postpartum care, as well as the limitations experienced at this moment; and the discovery that the virtual group can act by strengthening the support network necessary to face the difficulties of the puerperium based on the exchange of experiences.