Mortalidad materna en la región bolivariana de Latino-américa: área crítica

objective: to analyze maternal mortality ratio, causes of maternal mortality in latin-american bolivarian region countries: bolivia, colombia, ecuador, peru and venezuela, and to validate the sources of data. method: epidemiological study of maternal deaths in bolivarian countries, the data was obtained from search in data bases of internet, officials sites in the network of the ministry of health and vital statistics of each country, and was used the last year published; they totalized 2 282 deaths in this region. results: bolivia (2003), maternal mortality ratio was 230 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births, the main causes: hemorrhage 35 %, toxemia 21% and sepsis 5%. in peru (2001), maternal mortality ratio was 185 per 100 000 live births, the main causes: hemorrhage 47 %, sepsis 15 % and toxemia 12 %. ecuador (2005), maternal mortality ratio was 84.95 per 100 000 live births, the main causes: toxemia 30 %, hemo-rrhage 29 % and sepsis 7 %. in colombia (2005), maternal mortality ratio was 73.05 per 100 000 live births, the main causes: toxemia 26 %, hemorrhage 17.7 % and sepsis 6 %. venezuela (2005), maternal mortality ratio was 59.9 per 100 000 live births, the main causes: hemorrhage 28 %, toxemia 26 %, and sepsis 13%. the region showed maternal mortality ratio of 126.58 per 100 000 live births. conclusion: the maternal mortality average ratio of the region and the individual ratio by countries is elevated; the death causes were common (hemorrhage, toxemia and sepsis). it is needed to redouble efforts to lower these terrible rates indicating of the social-health of this region and better the recollection systems of information in special bolivia and peru.