Gustavo Gonçalves dos Santos, Carlos Oliveira, Bruna Feichas Renó, Ridenia Cavalcante Pessoa, C. Reis, Karina Franco Zihlmann
OBJECTIVE: To understand the prenatal care offered to pregnant women deprived of liberty, using their narratives as a strategy to identify barriers to care, information gaps, and challenges regarding the comprehensiveness of care. METHODS: A qualitative, narrative study was conducted with pregnant women deprived of liberty. The narratives were produced through individual interviews and subjected to thematic analysis, allowing the construction of analytical categories related to access to prenatal care, health guidance, preventive actions, nutritional needs, and subjective experiences of pregnancy. RESULTS: The narratives revealed irregular access and dependence on escort for consultations and examinations, resulting in late initiation and low continuity of prenatal care. A lack of essential guidance on warning signs, labor, breastfeeding, and the postpartum period was observed, as well as weaknesses in immunization and prevention measures. Participants reported the invisibility of nutritional and self-care needs, with standardized meals and a lack of specialized follow-up. In the subjective realm, feelings of fear, insecurity, loneliness, and ambivalence emerged upon discovering the pregnancy, which was often unplanned. The perception of care restricted to the bare minimum reinforced the feeling of lack of assistance and institutional vulnerability. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: Prenatal care in the prison context is fragmented and insufficient to meet the comprehensive needs of pregnant women. The findings point to the urgency of strategies that guarantee timely access, health education, preventive actions, and humanized care, contributing to the promotion of equity and maternal and child health in contexts of deprivation of liberty.