Jakarta, IO – Stunting prevention is a major effort to ensure that Indonesia benefits from the expected demographic bonus of 2030. A “demographic bonus” occurs when the number of the productive population (15-64 years of age) is higher than that of the non-productive population (65 or older). The upcoming bonus has a proportion of more than 60% of the total Indonesian population. If stunting remains highly prevalent by then, Indonesia might lose out on the demographic bonus, because a large proportion of its productive age population may actually be sickly and/or have lowered intelligence.
Stunting is a chronic nutritional problem. It is a priority issue in national development, as listed in the 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan, one which vows to reduce the stunting rate to 14% in 2024, from the 21.6% recorded by the Indonesian Nutrition Status Survey in 2022. Eliminating stunting means supporting all our children, so they can grow healthy and smart. This is the key to generating a reliable human resource, essential for our goal of turning Indonesia into an advanced country by 2045.
“The stunting process starts when a baby is still in the womb, until the time they were born. In the effort to help our children grow and develop better, right now 8,800 out of every 10,000 Public Clinics or Puskesmas in Indonesia have ultrasonographic (USG) scanners, which we use to monitor the fetuses’ growth and development in the womb. Furthermore, 260,000 out of every 300,000 Integrated Health Service Posts or Posyandu already have standardized anthropometric equipment to measure children’s height and weight. We expect to provide all our Puskesmas and Posyandu with these devices by the end of the year,” declares the Ministry of Health Director General of Public Health, dr. Maria Endang Sumiwi, MPH, during the launching of the “Healthy Child Movement: Preventing Stunting Together” event held on Tuesday (31/10/2023).
USG scanners are essential in monitoring whether a fetus grows and develops properly or not. “We have checked over 1.5 million pregnant mothers with USG, over the course of a year. This allows us to immediately refer a mother and baby if we find that the fetus’ size is smaller than it should be, during the mother’s pregnancy term, and forestall the risk of stunting. According to monthly Posyandu records, 4.2 million children do not gain weight in the period since the previous month’s weigh-in, 1 million children weigh less than they should, 522,000 children are insufficiently nourished, 71,000 children are malnourished, and 991,000 children are stunted. We can accelerate stunting elimination if all layers of society work together,” dr. Maria said.
Similar to Cancer Treatment
During the same event, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin reiterated that efforts should be made to focus on the prevention instead of elimination of stunting. “It is very hard to treat children who are already stunted. To draw an analogy with cancer treatment, stunting is like a stage-five cancer: it is extremely difficult to heal from, and the reversal costs are enormous. We need to solve stunting together by moving together, by involving as many parts of society as possible. We hope that more and more people will be involved in the movement as time goes by,” he said. We need to prevent stunting as early as possible, i.e. from the time of pregnancy preparation.
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We need to be vigilant throughout the pregnancy, birth, and the first 1,000 days of the baby’s life, or until they are about three years old. The Ministry of Health has 11 specific interventions to mitigate stunting, which include anemia screening among teenagers, provision of blood and iron fortifying tablets for teenage girls and pregnant mothers, pregnancy checks, provision of supplements for pregnant mothers who suffer from chronic lack of energy, monitoring the growth and development of babies and toddlers, the exclusive provision of mother’s milk, the provision of mother milk supplementary foods rich in animal protein, the treatment of babies and toddlers with nutritional problems, an increase in immunization coverage and education for teens, pregnant mothers and families. (est)