Objective:

To identify in the literature the cultural practices of postnatal care carried out by women and their families during the puerperium.

Methodology:

an integrative review was carried out through a search in the Gale Cengage Learning, Scielo, Redalyc, Dialnet, EBSCO, Proquest, Science Direct, PubMed and Medigraphic databases in English, Spanish and Portuguese between 2014 and 2019, using the terms: cultural care practices, puerperium care, newborn care and maternal and perinatal nursing care. The data were analyzed from the construction of a matrix in Excel.

Results:

A total of 70 articles were obtained, from which four thematic categories of cultural care practices emerged: self-care of the woman, care of the newborn by the mother/family, institutional care of the puerperal woman and the newborn, with breastfeeding being the common factor among them.

Conclusions:

the identification of different postnatal care practices in the hospital and outpatient settings varies according to social, economic and cultural aspects, but most of them favor bonding with the newborn. It is difficult to establish generalized and static cultural practices in Colombia due to the cultural diversity within each country.

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