High Maternal Mortality for Childbirth at Home

Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi said the maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) in Indonesia is high because labor is still widely practiced in the home, and maternal age are too young.

    

Therefore, kara Nafsiah Mboi in Jakarta, Monday (12/11/2012), Warning National Health Day (HKN) 2012 should give attention to maternal and child health MDGs because both indicators are still far from the targets to be achieved by 2015.

    

"Our country is enormous, the number of mothers giving birth is also too much. Though KB has been some progress but still less, still too many mothers who gave birth at a young age," said Minister of Health on the National Health Day.

The main causes of maternal mortality are hemorrhage and infection are not helped as many are still choosing to give birth at home, not in a hospital or clinic.

"Bleeding is more common in young mothers, 15-16 years have given birth. Then usually in a fairly remote area, the distance from home to the clinic a lot," says Menkes.

In Indonesia, data IDHS stated IMR has declined from 35 per 1,000 live births (2004) to 34 per 1,000 live births (2007) while the maternal mortality rate declined from 307 per 100,000 live births (2004) to 228 per 100,000 live births (2007).

Despite decreased quite a lot, indicators of IMR and MMR in the MDGs is still far from the targets specified and must be achieved by 2015.

The government still has to work hard to achieve the MDG's targets as agreed by the IMR 24 per 1,000 live births and maternal mortality rate 102 per 100,000 live births in 2015.

Nafsiah said the Ministry of Health to establish cooperation with other parties such as organizations and businesses to help achieve the MDGs for example through a place of worship in order to persuade the mother bear to go to the clinic.

"There are mothers who are reluctant to the clinic, wanted to give birth at home. This is not affordable so sometimes help too late. This is why important all through the place of worship to convey to the public so as not to be late," he said.

Deputy Health Minister Ali Ghufron Mukti expose the government has made inroads to reduce MMR and IMR as application delivery assurance (Jampersal) and integrated emergency response system (SPGDT).

"Now there is what we call a sister hospital, where the hospital in difficult terrain such as remote or border, assisted by sister hospitalnya in big cities, by sending a full team to areas of high mother mortality rate," said Ghufron.

Sister hospital that has been done by several hospitals in big cities such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Medan and Makassar Ghufron and is expected to also run by the other hospitals.