Maternal health policies in Brazil: relations to maternal and child health indicators

Abstract

Since the beginning of the medicalization process, there has been a huge effort towards the maintenance of the working force. One of the measures taken to control the work forces was the institutionalization of delivery. With this, knowledge concerning the physiological and pathological processes of the pregnant woman and of the newborn evolved so much that it allowed medical intervention focusing on the improvement of maternal and child health. The present study aims to identify the main laws and regulations, dating from 1980 onwards, which act as the basis to the creation and execution of public health policies towards pregnant women and newborns in Brazil. It also proposes to discuss the relation between these policies and maternal and child mortality from 1996 to 2005. A documental research was performed to identify the main laws and policies implemented by the Health Ministry regarding Maternal and Child Health. Information on health indicators was extracted from SIM and SINASC databases, available on-line. It is possible to conclude that the policies generated in society by social movements in the 1980s ended up consolidating many laws and health policies aiming at maternal and child health These had an important role in the organization of health services and systems, improving neonatal mortality indicators in the 1990s. However, the persistence of high maternal mortality rates brings the inevitable question: why have the female gender policies not been so successful in the last years?