CAUSES/RISK FACTORS OF MATERNAL MORTALITY IN BRAZIL: A SCOPING REVIEW

Abstract

The objective of this article is to identify the causes of maternal death in Brazil in the last four decades, to promote public policies to cope with it. To this end, a scoping review was carried out in the Medline, CINAHL, LILACS, WOS, SCOPUS, and Embase databases, and the descriptors were cross-referenced in health sciences. A total of 891 articles were identified, and after analysis according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 29 were obtained to be included in this study. Among the results, maternal mortality is directly related to social vulnerability, with low schooling being the most prevalent factor, followed by low or non-prenatal care, with hypertensive diseases: preeclampsia and eclampsia, and diseases of the circulatory system as direct and indirect causes, respectively. Over the course of 40 years of studies, the causes of mortality continue to require intersectoral interventions and awareness of health workers about the set of social determinants.