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Indonesia Traditional and Modern Health Practices
Although there was a 3.2 percent annual decline in
infant
mortality since 1960, in 1990, according to some accounts,
nearly
5.5 percent of babies born to Indonesian mothers still did
not
survive to their first birthday, the lowest figures for
all ASEAN
countries (see
table 14, Appendix). Other sources reported
a higher
rate--10 percent--for infant mortality. The situation
varied
regionally, from a low of about 6 percent mortality in
Yogyakarta,
where a colonial legacy of public health programs left
behind an
educated populace, to almost 19 percent infant mortality
rates in
Nusa Tenggara Timur Province.
Dukun--traditional healers--continued to play an
important role in the health care of the population in the
early
1990s. Often, dukun were used in conjunction with
Westernstyle medicine. In some rural areas, these healers
represented a
treatment option of first resort, especially when there
was no
community health center nearby, or if the only Western
health care
available was expensive or the facility understaffed. The
manner of
healing differed greatly among the hundreds of ethnic
groups, but
often these healers used extensive knowledge of herbal
medicines
and invoked supernatural legitimacy for their practice.
The use of Western-style medical clinics was rising in
the last
decades of the twentieth century, however, the Department
of Health
estimated that dukun attended upwards of 90 percent
of rural
births. Following childbirth, women in many parts of the
archipelago engaged in the practice of "roasting."
Although
different ethnic groups have different explanations for
the
practice, it usually involves the seclusion of the mother
and her
child for a period of time following childbirth--from a
few weeks
to months--in order to submit herself to prolonged
exposure to the
warmth of a hearth or other source of heat. In general, it
is
believed that this speeds the process of recovery, but
many believe
it helps replace a woman's lost blood, returns her body to
a trim
and fit shape, and helps "dry her out."
Data as of November 1992
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