Quality of the prenatal assistance: a perspective of the new puerperas

People say that prenatal assistance, when given with quality, can provide better results in the assistance to the birth. This work aimed at analyzing the quality of prenatal in the perspective of women in puerperal period. It is a qualitative and exploratory research accomplished in a public maternity of Pará, from February to June 2009. The subjects were 33 women in puerperal period that searched for the maternity to give birth. It was applied the semi-structured interview technique. After the study approval by the Committee of Ethics the Fundação Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Pará, protocol n.19/2009. It was used the content analysis. For most of the women in puerperal period (23), the prenatal gave important contributions to the birth by the support, intercurrence resolutions and diagnosis of associated diseases. For others (10), there was dissatisfaction with the attention manifested by the need of more information, besides attributing the late start to the prenatal to the difficulty of access. It was concluded that to reach the improvement in the prenatal assistance quality, it is required more involvement of health professionals, institutions and managers. Searching for strategies that attend the patients’ needs and expectations.