Registration of Live Births in Maranhão State, Brazil

Abstract

Data on births are important, both for demographic and health aspects since they allow the construction of several indicators, such as birth and fecundity rates, and the analysis of the health situation (IBGE, 2009). This way aimed to characterize the live birth numbers in the 217 municipalities in the state of Maranhão through search of secondary data in the public domain, available in Live Births Information System - SINASC, the Ministry of Health for the number of live births in the 217 municipalities of Maranhão state, in the years 2000, 2010 and 2014. From the analysis of the data can be observed that a number of live births in Maranhão is more pronounced in the central Maranhão mesoregion and in some points of the western, eastern and northern mesoregions of the State of Maranhão, with a mean between 101 and 600 births per year. There was a significant variation between the years 2010 and 2000 when comparing births by a period. The data on live births are needed for directing public health policies that come to contribute to social improvement.Key words: birth, Maranhense, population.