Perinatal asphyxia-prevalence and risk factors: a cohort study in a neonatal intensive care unit in northeast Brazil

Even with all the worldwide effort in the care of pregnant women and newborns in the last 10 years, perinatal asphyxia remains a crucial public health problem worldwide, being responsible for the high rates of morbidity and mortality in term and preterm newborns. In this perspective, research was carried out which aimed to investigate the prevalence and analyze the environmental and maternal-fetal risk factors associated with perinatal asphyxia.

This cohort study (2013-2018), corresponding to six years, was conducted in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. The study involved 480 postpartum women living in a capital in the Northeast of Brazil, whose newborns were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of a private referral hospital for high-risk pregnancies. Perinatal asphyxia in live births was taken as the dependent variable. To identify risk factors associated with perinatal asphyxia, bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed.

The research showed a high prevalence of perinatal asphyxia. The final multivariate analysis showed a significant association between perinatal asphyxia and eclampsia and complications in labor (p < 0.05), these being preventable causes of this outcome. The research demonstrated a high prevalence of perinatal asphyxia and a significant association between perinatal asphyxia and complications in labor, eclampsia, and cesarean sections (p < 0.05), being preventable causes of this outcome.

The study gave greater visibility to prenatal care, and understanding complications during pregnancy and childbirth care. The publication of the results signaled to managers the need to implement public and private politics to face this problem, which promoted improvements in the living conditions of the population and the care of pregnant women, to reduce the births of babies with perinatal asphyxia, consequently, reducing neonatal and infant mortality.