A Study of infant mortality and causes of death in a rural north-east Brazilian community

Abstract

SummaryIn 1984 a prospective study of 1645 women and 1677 births in a rural community in north-eastern Brazil showed the infant mortality rate to be 65 per 1000 live births. Neonatal, post-neonatal and infant mortality are analysed to determine the most important risk factors for each period. Post-neonatal survival depends largely on factors relating to child care, while neonatal deaths are more likely to be associated with biological factors. The principal cause of death, diarrhoeal disease, was responsible for a third of the deaths.

Infant mortality due to perinatal causes in Brazil: trends, regional patterns and possible interventions

“…13 This was carried out in a rural Northeast community and showed an adjusted relative risk of 1.2 (0.5-2.8) for neonatal mortality among homedelivered, compared to hospital-delivered, nonreferred babies. After controlling for the existence of complications, babies who were planned to be delivered at home but had to be referred to a hospital presented a relative risk of 0.3 (0.1-1.4) of neonatal death.…”

“…[13][14][15][16][17] Such adjustment is essential since mothers with fewer attendances also tend to present other social and biological risk factors. Most studies investigated early neonatal mortality -rather than mortality due to perinatal causes -but these are largely overlapping.…”

“…These studies were carried out in different settings, at different times, and used different ANC categories for presenting results, but all showed a protective effect of antenatal care. Taking together the results of the three betterdesigned studies [13][14][15] mothers with fewer than five attendances were at about 2.5 times greater risk than those with 5 or more attendances.…”

Intervenções para reduzir a mortalidade infantil pré-escolar e materna no Brasil

“…Os estudos foram realizados em diferentes locais, em períodos distintos e usando categorias diferentes de atenção pré-natal para a apresentação de resultados, mas todos revelaram uma associação protetora da atenção pré-natal. Juntando-se os resultados dos três estudos com maior detalhamento metodológico (Bailey et al 24 , Gray et al 25 e Menezes et al 26 ), as mães com menos de cinco consultas apresentaram um risco 2,5 vezes maior do que as demais.…”

“…Todos os estudos mostram um aumento do risco de mortalidade para recém-nascidos com BPN p . Três estudos tendo a mortalidade infantil como desfecho (Barros et al 42 , Bailey et al 24 e Menezes et al 43 ) mostram riscos relativos de 11,0, 9,7 e 6,1. Estudos que estratificaram recém-nascidos com BPN mostraram ser a mortalidade infantil entre prematuros pelo menos duas vezes mais alta do que entre aqueles com RCIU.…”