Dying mothers: Maternal mortality in rural Indonesia

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The Safe Motherhood Initiative was adopted by the World Health Organization to decrease the high rates of maternal mortality in developing countries. Towards this goal, various studies identified a short list of causes of maternal mortalities and recommended corrective programs. Indonesia put a number of such programs into effect, yet the maternal mortality rates have actually risen rather than fallen. This paper suggests that the causes of maternal mortality are far more complex than the public health literature indicates. Detailing the ethnographic cases of two maternal deaths on the rural island of Lombok, this paper emphasizes the complex social reality in which obstetric emergencies occur and within which people explain them. Using the insights these cases provide, the paper concludes with suggestions for ways of decreasing maternal mortality in Indonesia.

This publication has 34 references indexed in Scilit: