Prospective Mothers with Anemia Have Great Potential to Give Birth to Stunting Babies

Ida added that in preventing stunting, in addition to paying attention to vitamin D intake, laboratory examinations also needed to be carried out to detect nutritional deficiencies from the time of pregnant women.

“Such as routine hematology, anemia screening, signs of infection, confirmation of anemia, ferritin levels, iron levels, TIBC and Vitamin D examinations,” he said.

Various stunting prevention efforts are important considering that the stunting rate in Indonesia is still high. One example is in the Province of West Sulawesi (Sulbar).

According to data from the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN), the stunting rate in West Sulawesi is still above the national average of around 40.38 percent.

The high stunting rate in the province was followed by the infant mortality rate in 2019 reaching 223 per thousand live births and in 2020 rising to 292. Meanwhile, the maternal mortality rate has indeed decreased. Another problem in West Sulawesi is related to marriage at a young age which is still quite high.

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