Minister Of Health: Per Year 78 Thousand Babies Die Of Prematures

Minister Of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin/ANTARA/Rolandus Nampu

DENPASAR - The Ministry of Health said that infant mortality in Indonesia was mostly due to premature birth.

"In Indonesia, the most (died) because they were premature," said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Monday, September 2.

Budi said that every year there are 78,000 babies in Indonesia who die from 4.6 million who were born. Most of them occur on the island of Java considering the population in the area is also very large.

Budi said that early marriage is also one of the factors causing problems in the wife's womb, so that babies are quickly born with weights that are below the normal birth average.

"In Indonesia, the marriage is too fast, there are problems in the womb, below 37 weeks of birth," he said.

To handle the case, the government is currently dividing the baby care to a tough level at birth to reduce the infant mortality rate.

But Minister of Health Budi did not explain in detail regarding the mechanism for handling babies at every level, thus affecting the suppression of infant mortality rates.

"We have divided it, at the puskesmas it can be below 2 kilograms, in 514 district/city hospitals it can be below 1.8 kilograms, provincial hospitals can be up to 1 kilogram and below 1 kg of our vertical hospital," he said.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health continues to build more maternal and child hospital services to deal with under-average births and reduce infant mortality.

He detailed, after the COVID-19 pandemic was over, the government targeted 17 maternal and child hospitals to be established in Indonesia, one of which was the Mother and Child Health Service building at the Prof. Central General Hospital. Denpasar Ngoerah was inaugurated by President Joko Widodo.

Of the 17, 12 have their construction started, while the rest will start with the next presidential government where funding has been prepared.

According to the Minister of Health, Mother and Child Hospitals are an important need to be built immediately, referring to the data on infant mortality that occurs a lot in Indonesia.