Infant mortality rate rises amid economic crisis

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has expressed concern over the rising infant mortality rate, which has increased from 47 babies per 1,000 births in 1997 to 51 babies in 2001 amid the lingering economic crisis.

"We predict the infant mortality rate will be about 50 per 1,000 births in 2004," S. Soemantri of the Research and Development Unit at the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday at a round table discussion held by the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN).

The government also said that the post-natal maternal mortality rate had increased from 325 mothers per 100,000 births in 1995 to 396 mothers in 2001. Some experts even said the maternal mortality rate could be as high as 594 per 100,000 births.

"The economic crisis has increased the number of people without access to health services. Thus the mortality rate for babies and mothers has been increasing. We're the second worst in Southeast Asia after Myanmar." Siswanto A. Wilopo, BKKBN deputy chairman for family planning and reproductive health, told reporters.

According to Siswanto, with an infant mortality rate of over 47 babies per 1,000 births, this meant that over 140,000 babies aged less than one week died per year, or 2,690 per week.

For mothers, Siswanto said, given the present maternal mortality rate, over 300 mothers died every week after giving birth, almost the same as the total passenger complement of a full Airbus plane.

Soemantri went on to say that the government must give more attention to providing health services for babies and mothers in light of the findings.

"The increase in the infant and maternal mortality rate over the past few years is not something we expected," he said.

According to Soemantri, with such a high infant mortality rate, Indonesia would only be able to reduce the figure to less than 20 per 1,000 births after 2025.

Sri Hariati Hatmadji, a researcher at the University of Indonesia, agreed with Soemantri, saying that 18 provinces in the country still had infant mortality rates of over 50 per 1,000 births.

According to Sri, the main killers of babies was premature birth and being underweight at birth, followed by respiratory infections and diarrhea.

For mothers, bleeding after birth and anemia were two of the main causes of deaths, she said.

Siswanto further said that the high mortality rates for babies and mothers, and their tendency to increase, should encourage the government to pay more attention to family planning.

"We must ensure that our family planning program continues as it can control pregnancies thus reducing the possibilities of death.

"We are going to increase our coverage from about 25 million couples -- or about 57 percent of total couples -- to 70 percent," he said.