Low Birth Weight Infants in a Remote Area of Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Following the mother and child policy called the Revolusi KIA in East Nusa Tenggara Province, the registration for low birth weight (LBW) infants increased because mothers should deliver at health facilities. The South Central Timor (TTS) district was suffered with LBW and therefore raised a question why the problem occurred. A qualitative study in a sub district of TTS district was implemented. The area was approximately 60 Km away from the district capital and 160 Km from the provincial capital, Kupang. The target resource persons were a pregnant woman, mother with LBW baby, health cadres and health personnel from the primary health care. A house visit was done to explore the problem among pregnant women. We found no risk of smoking and drinking alcohol among them. Passive smoker might happen due to husband smoking at home. In the Puskesmas we observed risk of anemia, malaria and chronic under nutrition among the mothers as also the risk factors of LBW. However, we found no specific follow up afterwards. Education was made but not recorded. There was no complete record also, for each mother at delivery, which indicated a problem in the health care delivery. The Puskesmas’ task was to identify individual risk factors of pregnancy but not for the newborn in context of the community. Certainly, the Puskesmas was in needs for improvements of health care services, in this study, the maternal and child health care.

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