Abstract
Objective: To characterize and identify causes of infant mortality in Porto Velho, Rondônia from 2012 to 2017. Methods: Time series with data from the Mortality Information System and the Live Birth Information System. The frequencies and coefficients were performed using the SPSS Statistics software, version 17. Results: Of the 53,321 live births, 1.31% resulted in deaths before completing one year of life. Of these, 48.93% occurred in the early neonatal period and 56.78% were certainly not preventable. The main causes of death associated with actions with attention to the newborn fetus (46.50%) and women during pregnancy (32.87%). The main cause of neonatal deaths was due to non-prime bacterial septicemia in the newborn (57.73%). The highest infant mortality rate was in 2016 (14.82 deaths / 1,000 live births). Conclusion: Infant death in the early neonatal period occurred due to preventable causes linked to care for the fetus / newborn and the pregnant woman. Neonatal mortality from bacterial septicemia does not satisfy prenatal / delivery / post-birth failures. It is essential to qualify professionals who work in the pregnancy-puerperal cycle, especially doctors responsible for notifications to improve the surveillance of infant death. It is suggested to evaluate factors that interfere with the quality of prenatal care and the analysis performed at the time of delivery.