This qualitative study presents the impact of the Ministerial Edict (number 2,015/98) relative to the inclusion of a set of procedures created by the obstetrician nurses in Public Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS). Tne objectives of this study are: present two excerpts which were published in a very popular newspaper and in a bulletin of tie medical professional segment in1998; analyze TV news which constitute different and tense discourses. The study identified two ideas, which were based on three pieces of news collected from the press. The first idea corresponds to the lack of visibility regarding the technical competence of obstetrician nurses in the social context. The second is related to Ine political acknowledgement of this service, which can be observed through the payment of obstetric nursing procedures according to a price list established by the Public Health System. Our final considerations are related to the social and political situation of obstetric nursing, in spite of the interventionist manipulation of society carried out by the media, which tries to create social-ideological discourses in order to obtain consensus and (re) produce truths.
obstetric nursing; politics and society; media