[Nursing work and its meaning to female professionals]

This is a qualitative study that used Life History method aiming to describe the woman-mother-nursing laborer's daily routine and to analyze the woman-mother-nursing laborer's perception of their daily routine, based on their life history. Twenty-five nursing professionals of a public general hospital in Rio de Janeiro, who had children, were interviewed. The report analysis revealed that these laborers see nurses as multivalent professionals, who are involved in the whole hospital organization dynamics, due to lack of delimitation of the nursing actions. The precariousness of the conditions in which the population of this public institution is assisted, manifested by resources insufficiency directly interferes in the nursing activity.