[Child care and health rights: perspectives of adolescent mothers].

OBJECTIVE To analyze child health care and the defense of their rights from the perspective of adolescent mothers. METHODS An exploratory study with qualitative thematic analysis of data, based on conceptual aspects of care and the right to health, from semi-structured interviews with 20 adolescent mothers ascribed by Family Health teams. RESULTS Maternal reports indicate that child health care requires responsibility and protection, with health practices that promote child advocacy. Gaps in assistance which preclude the full guarantee of the right to child health care were also highlighted. CONCLUSION The right to health care assumed different meanings, and the forms to guarantee them were linked to individual behavior in detriment to broader actions that consider health as a social product, connected to the guarantee of other fundamental rights.