Comparative analysis of the profile of live births in the five regions of Brazil: A retrospective study

Abstract

This research presents a description of the profile of live births from 2015 to 2019, in the five Brazilian regions. The study is cross-sectional, retrospective, descriptive and documentary with a quantitative approach. The search for data was carried out using the database of the information technology department of the Unified Health System (DATASUS). The variables assessed were: maternal education, marital status, prenatal care, birth weight, APGAR at the 1st and 5th minute and maternal age group. In the five regions of the country, from 2015 to 2019, 14,593,081 individuals were born. The Southeast region had the highest percentage of births (n=5,725,566; 39.23%), followed by the Northeast (n=4,101,929; 28.10%), the South (n=1,977,877; 13.55% ), North (n=1,574,056; 10.78%) and Midwest (n=1,213,653; 8.31%). Among the analyzed data, observed in some regional peculiarities, where the North and Northeast regions presented the highest percentage of teenage pregnancies, the South and Southeast regions showed the highest number of prenatal consultations, greater maternal education , as well as a better APGAR score at the 1st and 5th minutes. It is concluded that the regional and social diversity in Brazil contributes to a variation in the birth profile, resulting in lower quality of health of the mother-child binomial in some regions.