Profile of the Pregnant Women Affected by Preterm Birthin a Public Maternity Hospital

Objective: Herein, our goal has been to characterize the pregnant women profile that experienced preterm birth.Moreover, describe the complications of preterm birth, and also to identify the number of deaths due to preterm birth. Methods: It is a retrospective cohort study with a quantitative approach, whichwas carried out in a public maternity hospital.The sample that represented the population consisted of 300 medical records of pregnant women with preterm birth. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee under the Legal Opinion No. 1,175,971. Results: The predominant age group was from 14 to 19 years old (26.38%); high school education (56.68%); married (38.11%); housekeeper (48.21%); unregistered race (99.67%); rural area as residence place (57.00%). The following were thehigher incidence of complications within the variables: pre-eclampsia(28.66%) and premature amniorrexis (17.27%). The major cause of death was pre-eclampsia. Conclusion: It should be noted that pre-eclampsia caused the highest number of deaths in the women investigated and this fact shows the alarming statistics, confirming that hypertensive diseases occupy the first place as cause of maternal death in Brazil.