Fatores associados à indu？？o do parto em gestantes com óbito fetal após a 20a semana

objectives: to determine the factors associated with induced delivery in pregnant women carrying a dead fetus. methods: a cross-sectional study with 258 pregnant women past the 20th week of gestation diagnosed by ultrasound as carrying a dead fetus, between january 2005 and december 2008, at the hospital bar？o de lucena maternity hospital, in recife, brazil. socio-demographic characteristics, causes and types of fetal death, prior obstetric data and characteristics of birth were the variables studied. the chi-square test, fisher's exact test and student's t test were used. the rate of prevalence was calculated and multiple logistic regression was carried out. the level of significance was 5%. results: birth was induced in 83 (32.2%) of the pregnant women. following multivariate analysis, it was found that a gestational age of over 40 weeks (or= 126.5; ci95%= 3.83-4,201.5) and late fetal death (or= 6.86; ci95%= 2.55-18.47) were the risk factors that continued to be associated with induced delivery. caesarian section (or= 0.02; ci95%= 0.004-0.09), funiculopathy (or= 0.12; ci95%= 0.02-0.68), having had one or more previous pregnancies (or= 0.34; ci95%= 0.14-0.81) and one or more previous caesarian sections (or= 0.16; ic95%= 0.04-0.71) were negatively associated with induced delivery. conclusions: a gestational age of over 40 weeks and late fetal death are the risk factors that could be associated with induced delivery in pregnant women carrying a dead fetus.