The aim of this study was to investigate the Indonesian programme, especially in a rural area, in order to improve effectiveness. The study was carried out in October 1992 and included 107 pregnant women in the second and third trimester of pregnancy. The study area was Jeneponto district, the most southern district in the province of South Sulawesi. Due to a long dry season from October to April, a limited ground-water supply and poor soils, Jeneponto has marginal potential for agriculture. Maize is the major food crop, followed by rice and cassava.
Values are means sd.
Three to five villages were chosen from each subdistrict and the study was carried out in 18 villages altogether. The number of inhabitants in the 18 villages varied between 2000 to 11 000. In each of the 18 villages, four to ten pregnant women were chosen with the help of health care workers or the village head. Since there were no available lists of all pregnant women in the villages, it can not be known what percentage of the entire pregnant population was investigated, or whether the selected women were representative. All subjects gave their informed consent.