Abstract

A survey on perinatal care in a rural area at Ujung Berung district, located 15—20 km outside Bandung, West Java was conducted. Three villages with a population of 40,787 were selected. Health services were provided by one health post and several family planning posts. In this study 1303 pregnant women were followed throughout the 28 weeks of pregnancy until the infant is 28 days of age. Among the 1303 pregnant women 5.7% had received tetanus toxoid immunization. Perinatal mortality rate (PMR) was 43.6 per thousand and incidence of low birth weight was 14.3 percent. Only 12.8% pregnant women were using some kind of contraception before the last pregnancy. The PMR decreased in spite of the low percentage users. The main causes of death during perinatal period vece asphyxia neonatorum and infections. The incidence of tetanus neonatorum during neonatal period was 17 per thousand live births. An evaluation of health service activities showed 47.5% of these pregnant women had antenatal care. Care during delivery and early postnatal period was carried out by TBAs. No significant difference was found between the PMR of trained and untrained TBAs. Another aspect of health service activities is referral to the health centre or hospital. A total of 3.8 percent infants were referred because of neo­natal problems; among these, refusal was 12.5% due to the totalistic attitude of the parents in the village. The results showed that coverage of pregnant women and their infants by safe health care services is very low. This may be due to lack of facilities and health personnel, and probably also due to the confidence of village people for traditional health care providers. Thus, education and training as well as supervision of traditional health care providers and their integration into the formal health care structure is of extreme importance.