Profile and factors associated with low birth weight in Indonesia: a national data survey

Background: The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is a manifestation of Indonesia's global commitment, which is a form of commitment related to health issues that are integrated into the third objective "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages". One of the target indicators is to reduce under-five mortality and infant mortality. In rural areas, there is a lack of access to medical facilities (healthcare services, anthropometry tools) and health workers. So, the low birth weight in rural areas remains high. This study aims to determine the profile and test the factors that cause low birth weight in Indonesia.
Methods: This study uses secondary data from the National Socio-Economic Survey 2021 with a national sample of 4,711,455 women (weighted), which is analyzed descriptively and inferentially. The analysis was conducted descriptively to determine the profile and distribution of low birth weight at the national and provincial levels, while inferential analysis was performed using logistic regression to determine the variables that most influence low birth weight.
Results: The prevalence of low birth weight in Indonesia is 11.7 percent. North Maluku is the province with the highest low birth weight rate of 20.1 percent meanwhile West Java is the province with the highest number of LBW infants in Indonesia with 104,585 infants. This study found that smoking, rural areas, poor nutrition, age of childbirth, age and birth spacing had significantly affect to the incidence of low birth weight in Indonesia. In rural Indonesia, women tend to give low birth weight (aOR: 1.249; 95% CI: 1.241–1.256). The low birth weight in rural areas was higher than in urban areas (12.9% vs 10.8%) in Indonesia.
Conclusions: This study concluded that smoking behavior is the main variable that influences the incidence of low birth weight in Indonesia. Therefore, it should be giving assistance to families by prioritizing significant factors of LBW (living in the village/rural area, low education, smoking behavior including passive smoking, not or rarely consuming nutritious food and risky maternal). Especially for rural areas, governments need to improve access to healthcare facilities such as anthropometry tools, health workers, and healthcare services.
Keywords: low birth weight, smoking, nutrition, infants, stunting, child health