Learning and playing the game : women's experiences of mothering in the Level II nursery

This paper reports a portion of the results of a grounded theory analysis of women's experiences of mothering in the Level II nursery. The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of how women perceive their early mothering experience when their infant is hospitalised at birth. A number of major categories were identified that demonstrated how women 'worked' hard to build collaborative relationships with nurses in an effort to achieve closeness and intimacy with their infant. The focus of this paper is one of these categories 'learning and playing the game'.