NEONATAL SEPSIS: MORTALITY IN A MUNICIPALITY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL, 2000 TO 2013

To describe the neonatal mortality coefficient attributed to sepsis and other causes, and to report the maternal, neonatal and death characteristics of newborn infants that died in the city of Londrina, Paraná, in Southern Brazil.

This is a cross-sectional study with a time series analysis. Neonatal deaths that contained neonatal sepsis records in any field of the death certificate between the years 2000 and 2013 were studied. The years were grouped into biennia, and cause specific neonatal mortality coefficient was calculated, according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision. Results are expressed as prevalence ratio and 95% confidence interval (95CI%). For bivariate analysis, p<0.05 was considered significant.

Among the 745 deaths, 229 (30.7%) had sepsis, with a neonatal mortality coefficient of 7.5 per one thousand livebirths. Sepsis was involved in 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births. The main underlying causes were conditions originated in the perinatal period and congenital malformations. Sepsis was associated with pre-eclampsia, urinary tract infection, Apgar in the 1st and 5th minutes, and occurrence of late death. In the descriptive trend analysis, there was an increased proportion of mothers aged 35 years or older and with eight or more schooling years. Prenatal coverage was high, but a little more than half of the mothers attended seven or more medical appointments.

In the 14 years analyzed, the prenatal care was identified as a preventive measure against maternal and fetal disorders and the advanced maternal age was associated with neonatal mortality.