Infant deaths investigated by the Prevention Committee of Infant Mortality in region of Paraná state

Abstract

This study had the purpose to analyze infant deaths in the 15th Regional Health Center of Paraná State, using the result of the investigations of the Committee for the Prevention of Infant Mortality. It is a descriptive exploratory study based on the System of Investigation of Infant Mortality and on the Information System of Live Births in the period of 2000-2006. The infant mortality coefficient decreased from 13.2% to 11.6%. Of the 799 deaths, the Committee investigated 74.5%; 56.5% of which were in the early neonatal period. The diseases originated in the perinatal period and the congenital malformations were the main causes of death. Among them, 70.1% were considered reducible. The reducibility of death was greater among adolescent mothers' babies, newborns of ≥ 2500g, normal childbirth, black, mulatto and indigenous races, and on mothers without prenatal care. The analyses of the deaths should be performed together with the family health teams, who know the pregnant women best, in order to improve the work and the quality of the analyses from the Committee.