In this study, our purpose was to direct ourselves to the mothers who had babies that were born prematurely and needed to be assisted in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, searching for the comprehension of the feelings provoked in these mothers due to such situation and, thus, project new possibilities of caring aimed at these beings. For that, we opted for a qualitative-descriptive study, based on the principles of the existential phenomenology. From the analysis, four categories emerged; the pain to see her child be born prematurely and then be taken away from her arms; undergoing the possibility of losing a part of hers; revival of feelings from the understanding of the situation of the child and; the importance of the hospital's staff during the process of her child's recovering. We inferred that listening and paying attention are vital instruments to aid the mother and her child in their singularities.
Neonatal nursing; Maternal behavior; Family health