Social representations of motherhood for women deprived of liberty in the female prison system

Abstract

This paper aimed to analyze the social representations of motherhood of pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and those who experienced pregnancy in deprivation of liberty in the prison system. This qualitative study was conducted with 42 women and is grounded on the assumptions of the Theoretical Paradigm of Social Representations. Most participants were young women aged 18-39 (90.5%; n=38) and single (50.0%; n=21); 61.9% (n=26) reported two or more pregnancies and 47.6% (n=20) reported one or more miscarriages. The possible representation of being a mother in prison was crystallized, in semantic terms, mainly by the terms “separation” (f=27; OME: 2.9), “sadness” (f=18; OME: 2.3), “horrible” (f=16; OME: 2.1) and “pain” (f=12; OME: 2.8). In the substitution and decontextualization zone, representations were objectified by the terms “separation” (f=18; OME: 3), “sadness” (f=13; OME: 2.5), “fear” (f=11; OME: 2.2) and “horrible” (f=10; OME: 1.5). It was evident that the centrality of social representations for the study participants reflects the suffering experienced by the separation of the mother-child dyad.