Analysis of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal mortality in Brazil in 2020-2021

Abstract This is a descriptive and ecological study that analyzed the behavior of maternal mortality during the covid-19 pandemic in Brazil in 2020 and 2021, based on data from both the mortality information system (sim) at datasus and the network portal national health data (rnds). from the historical series of maternal mortality ratios (mmr) from 1996 to 2021, it was identified an average of 56.79 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, concentrated in the north, northeast, and midwest regions, during the pandemic an increase of mmr to 110.25/100,000 live births. of these deaths, 40.5% were related to covid-19 and 70% occurred during the postpartum period, affecting brown, and high-school level of education women. the south, midwest regions and the federal district increased the mmr related to the coronavirus by more than 400%. we identified a low adherence to vaccination against covid-19 was observed in the north, northeast and midwest regions. with noteworthy disparities between the state of são paulo there was a (268.14%) vaccination coverage of immunized pregnant and puerperal women, while in the state of roraima there was only a (4.57%). as a conclusion, the pandemic had tragic effects on maternal health, setting back the mmr in Brazil by about 20 years, which poses even greater challenges to achieving sdg target 3.1 for reducing maternal mortality in the country.