Practices and meaningful about humanization in the maternal-infant healthcare under health workers perspective

This paper aims to analyze how professionals involved in maternal-infant health care perceive and position themselves with regard to the institutional dynamic and everyday experiences shaping their health care work at two maternal-infant services of the Unified Health System (SUS). The methodology used to study the professionals’ everyday practices at these maternal-infant healthcare services was Institutional Ethnography. The analysis of the professionals’ discourses evidences the polysemic character of the term humanization, tending to convey meanings of empathy and caring concern. It was also observed that professionals’ values and degree of commitment influence their health care actions, characterizing their own way of taking care. However, it was verified that structural and functional institutional difficulties are constraining the professionals’ interventions, showing a disconnection between what is proposed in public documents and the everyday working conditions in health care services.