Abstract:

OBJECTIVE:
The transition situation that women go through, the cultural diversity, the reduced access of the migrants to the health system, among others, are situations that place, both users and health care professionals in vulnerable position when providing care. Within this context, the following objectives were designed:
To understand the meanings that emerge from the transition process, in the situation of motherhood.
To understand how the immigrant woman views the care considering her own motherhood project (pregnancy, birth and puerperium)
To reveal beliefs and values inherent to the immigrant mother in a life transition situation.
To identify how the care process differs from the origin country

METHODS:
Qualitative, explanatory descriptive study, originating from the start question: What significances emerge from the transition process, in the immigrant woman/mother that goes through motherhood? The participants inclusion criteria were: residing in Portugal for at least three months; to have gone through or going through a motherhood process; to have the pregnancy followed in the Portuguese health system and to accept participating in the study. Non probabilistic sample, intentional (twelve immigrant mothers). Sample Determined by the data saturation principle. Data collection instrument: semi-structured interview, with recourse to audio taping, with previous informed consent. Data were analysed using the content analysis technique, with Open Coding, Axial Coding and Selective coding (Cobrir & Strauss, 2008), with the aid of NUD*IST 8.0 ® software

RESULTS:
Eight categories emerged: difficult communication; lack of differences in the care process, different myths and beliefs, converging cultural practice, inadequate information, discrimination, difficult access to consultations, health care free of charge.

CONCLUSIONS:
The emerging findings point to the lack of intrinsic care rituals in Portugal that conflict with their culture. The greatest barrier these immigrants face is communication. However they do specify the gender issue: man should not be the caretaker of the woman, as they belong to the Muslim culture.

DISCUSSION:
From the participants’ perspective, health care tends to be culturally appropriate. An example, in Uzbekistan the care is no different, with the exception of the technology used, that they perceive as "superior."
The results of this study have implications for practice, insofar as unfolding the meanings about the care and the beliefs and values, health care workers acquire specific knowledge about the ethno culture, thus avoiding negative attitudes, ethnocentric behaviors, therefore helping the woman / couple in a transition to parenthood, as the lack of respect for the culture can cause culture shock.

Keywords:

Immigrant mother, cultural care, cultural diversity, immigration.