Labeled maternity: the stigma of being a mother with visual impairment

Abstract

This article seeks to broaden the discussion on disability andmaternity, valuing the experience of women with visual impairments. It refers to a cut ofthe data fromthemaster’s researchGiving birth when one doesn’t see: visually impaired women’s reports about motherhood, which analyzed the motherhood construction through the reports of mothers with visual impairment through nondirected interviews. The comprehension, interest and questioning of participants regarding maternity and its practices, the ramifications of this new social arrangement and the gender’s demarcations involved in the taking care of the children motivate further development of the theme and point to the need that the concept of “stigma” should also include motherhood for women with disabilities. The reports of the participants showed two aspects related to motherhood: the stigmatization of being a blind mother and the idea of sacrificial maternal love, a gender position and even of identity, in which women with disabilities, with numerous social barriers, are led to take care of children and still do not receive the social legitimacy of this new position, thereby limiting her new identity as a mother.