Introduction:

To understand premature birth through perceptions of families with premature babies admitted to neonatal intensive care unit from a cross-cultural perspective.

Materials and methods:

An exploratory-descriptive qualitative study was conducted through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 16 relatives of premature babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of a maternity hospital in the state of Bahia. R Software was used for multidimensional analysis of texts and questionnaires and content analysis.

Results:

Four categories were established: premature babies with their particularities in family’s perceptions; family’s feelings caused by premature birth; spirituality as a strategy to give meaning to premature birth; and premature birth from professional healthcare.

Discussion:

Understanding the experiences of families in the neonatal environment can contribute to healthcare professionals and institutions reorienting their practices to target integrality of care by identifying the particularities of each family and recognizing their cultural diversity.

Conclusions:

Understanding the needs and culture of families contributes to the provision of more humane and effective care in which the family plays a part in planning and decision making on integral care of their premature baby, not only highlighting biological factors but also social and psychological factors that comprehensively involve the premature baby and their family.

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