This was a qualitative research project with the objective to analyze the meanings attributed by nurses to changes in their obstetrical practice, using the method "production of meanings in the everyday - discursive practices," as proposed by Mary Spink. Data was collected through semi-structured, individual interviews with 16 obstetrical nurses in public maternity wards in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The interviews were analyzed with the concepts "crossing boundaries" and "constellations of power," by Boaventura Santos. The meanings attributed by the nurses to the obstetrical practices verified a transformation process in the field of obstetrical knowledge, and practices in the perspective of demedicalization. The frontier, as a place of paradigmatic transition to new practices, emerges in emancipatory relationships with the women users of the service. We conclude that experimentation with new practices involves overcoming known limits to find autonomy, configuring a knowledge and practice with emancipatory possibilities. In this direction, crossings come from the boldness to seek and experiment the new, transgress the limit, and make use of open spaces in the constellation of powers.
Woman's health; Obstetrical nursing; Humanizing delivery