Maternity Care and Perinatal Mortality in Indonesia

Abstract

Pregnant women and neonates remain the most vulnerable group in any population and many risk factors during pregnancy affect the birth outcome. Crowded and unhygienic living conditions and lack of access to primary maternal care are risk factors known to influence pregnancy outcome. Since formal education and literacy are linked with these conditions, a statistical analysis is mandatory. Furthermore the provision of prenatal care is a direct short-term health intervention requiring quantitative assessment with pregnancy outcome. Since education and prenatal care often exists together, both variables need adequate epidemiologic control when assessing pregnancy outcome. Sufficient prenatal care for low education women (LED) might lead to a more favorable pregnancy outcome than insufficient prenatal care for high education women (HED). If this hypothesis can be substantiated with adequately collected epidemiologic dataf the implication would be commanding. High priority deployment of maternity care programs independent of the development of the educational system would be highly desirable.