PERINATAL CARE IN A NORTHEASTERN BRAZILIAN STATE: STRUCTURE, WORK PROCESSES, AND EVALUATION OF THE COMPONENTS OF ESSENTIAL NEWBORN CARE.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the structure and the processes of care for pregnant women/newborn infants, including the Essential Newborn Care (ENC), in maternity hospitals in Sergipe State, Brazil.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study carried out between June 2015 and April 2016 in all maternity hospitals of Sergipe with more than 500 deliveries/year (n=11). A questionnaire on the existing structure and work processes was administered to the managers. Subsequently, a representative number of postpartum women from these hospitals were interviewed (n=768). Their medical records, as well as newborn infants' records, were also analyzed.

RESULTS

Sergipe has 78 beds of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and 90 beds of Intermediate Care Unit (IMCU) to meet spontaneous and programmed demand. Only six maternity hospitals (54.5%) performed the risk classification, and four (36.3%) had protocols for high-risk parturient care. Regarding the ENC components, only 41% (n=315) of the women had early skin-to-skin contact with their babies, 33.1% (n=254) breastfed in the first hour of life, and 18% (n=138) had a companion always during birth.

CONCLUSIONS

The distribution of NICU beds between capital city and other cities of the State is adequate, considering Brazilian guidelines. However, there was a low adherence to the protocols for hypertensive and hemorrhagic emergencies, and a low coverage of humanization policies, pregnancy risk classification and ENC practices, especially breastfeeding in the first hour of life, and companion always during birth.