OBJECTIVE: To identify the meaning of care in the puerperal phase, within the family context. METHODS: It is a qualitative research, developed with 12 puerperal women and their relatives, who helped them with care after delivery. Data collection was performed by means of semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed based on the technique of thematic content analysis. RESULTS: In the postnatal period, care needs to be doubled, as it affects mother and child, besides the body vulnerability, which is open to diseases. In articulation with these ideas, the recommendations and restrictions as components of postpartum care are justified. CONCLUSION: Care in the puerperal phase is a feminine practice filled with beliefs and taboos that grants women with power of agents in this process, since she bears the knowledge of many generations at the same time that they act as subjects and reinvent the previously established systems, constructing themselves as mothers.
Postpartum period; Postnatal care; Maternal-child nursing; Women health