BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To understand through the theory of social representations the sociocultural dimensions of pain and its impact on the protagonism of women in parturition. METHODS: In this investigation, we used a qualitative methodology with the theoretical reference of phenomenology and the theory of social representation. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with gravidas in public and private health services of Joinville, SC, Brazil, who had at least four prenatal visits and were in the third trimester of pregnancy. RESULTS: From analysis of content reported in interviews, three empirical categories were formed: fears and concerns, experience, and sociocultural influence, which allowed the building of three interpretative categories: biomedical model, lack of information, and the role of women in the decision regarding the mode of delivery. The findings reported here indicate pain as one of the elements that form female social representations in parturition. It was observed that pain influences the behavior of gravidas from fear and becomes the genesis of other aversive feelings and concerns that involve parturition. CONCLUSIONS: In this context, pain represented one of the main building blocks of female social representations on parturition, contributing to the ascending curve of cesarean section indices in Brazil.
Labor, Obstetric; Qualitative Research; Interviews as Topic; Cesarean Section; Causality; Anthropology, Cultural