title: [Maternal mortality on the family members' perspective].
abstract: Maternal mortality is one of the health and social development indicators for countries. It is a tragedy for the family, as the death of a mother deprives the child of breastfeeding and maternal contact and also due to the fact that women maintain family unity. This study is aimed at understanding the meaning of death for the family members of women who have died. The population was formed by 10 family members of 7 women who died as a result of maternal problems in the municipality of Ribeirão Preto. The authors visited their homes and collected data through interviews. For analyzing the data the authors used thematic analysis. Three thematic categories were found: the meaning of maternal mortality; living maternal mortality in the family; and living maternal mortality in the health services. The visit confirmed that there are secondary factors that influenced in the occurrence of maternal deaths.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Enfermagem Materno-lnfantil e Saúde Pública da Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto da Universidade de São Paulo. flagomes@uol.com.br
authors.forename: Flávia Azevedo
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.forename: Ana Márcia Spanó
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: Ana Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: de Almeida
authors.forename: Yuriko Kanashiro
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Matuo
mesh_terms: D003643:Death; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers; D007744:Obstetric Labor Complications; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications