Exploring children’s condition of adolescent mothers in East Kalimantan Indonesia: an ethnography study

Abstract

Introduction: Children born to adolescent mothers tend to experience problems in health, growth, and development, also social problems. These problems persist and worsen due to various factors such as a pandemic, deteriorating economic conditions, and people’s readiness to become parents. It is associated with the unpreparedness of adolescent mothers to face the dual roles carried out as mothers and adolescents themselves. The study aims to explore and describe children’s condition of adolescent mothers during their motherhood in the community. Methods: This is an ethnography study that involves adolescent mothers in two public health centers in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. Twenty participants aged between 13 to 19 years old, and who had children were gained by purposive sampling. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, observation, and field notes to explore behaviors, beliefs, values, and perceptions of adolescent mothers about children’s health status. Data saturation was accomplished and analyzed with content analysis. Results: The result revealed 3 themes about children’s conditions of adolescent mothers in the community which involve: 1) Children’s health status, 2) Children’s breastfeeding status, and 3) Children’s immunization status. Conclusions: Many of their children have health problems at birth related to health problems during pregnancy. The low coverage of exclusive breastfeeding and basic immunization is caused by low support from families, inconsistent cultural beliefs, incomplete information, and the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being stigmatized as adolescent mothers caused them to lack regular check-ups on their children.