I traveled to Cuba for the first time last July, with an organization of anti-blockade activists to learn more about the revolution and the people. Given the serious difficulties caused by the U. S. economic blockade, we have also brought medical supplies to Cuba. maternity hospitals on the island. I asked about maternal care in Cuba and shared the painful story of the birth of my first child and my frustrating and illogical 10-day separation from him in the hospital. The visceral awareness of what human-centered attention is as well as profit-focused attention, and how my experience had been different, hit me at home.
Our itinerary included a stop at a maternity hospital in Santa Clara. But as a precaution, our organization was unable to make a stop in space because a member of our organization tested positive for COVID-19. It was secluded and well maintained. Instead, doctors and nurses from a nearby clinic came to make a stopover where we were. They had the opportunity to describe their work, answer our questions and settle for our donations, a small gesture of solidarity in the face of the blockade. Despite the scarcity of fountains, kindergartens continue to offer high-level care. The relentless and punitive U. S. blockade stifles Cuba’s ability to fill non-renewable, mandatory materials like the ones we brought with us in other 50-pound suitcases filled with prenatal vitamins, acetaminophen, candidiasis medications, and more. We are pleased to deliver the medical donations that were given to us through the Hatuey project.
I shared my story and asked what it would have been like for me to give birth in Cuba. My first child was born with a small hole in his lung and was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit for 10 days. The hole in my son’s lung closed overnight, but then he suffered two episodes of apnea that extended his NICU stay in the hospital an hour’s drive from our house. I was exhausted after 23 hours of hard work and a complicated delivery. Despite the importance of fostering the mother-child bond and things like skin-to-skin contact between parents and children advertised on posters in any maternity ward, this is difficult to achieve in a hospital where we were separated from each other. time in U. S. hospitals. USA In Cuba, either they would have treated and kept us in combination for as long as necessary,” one of the doctors told me.
With the triumph of the revolution came the effort to free women from the social and economic repression of the past. In 1962 the first pilot maternity program was established as a comprehensive maternal health care for rural women, and then extended to any woman with a high-risk pregnancy who needed the one that the media can offer.
Nursing homes were established shortly after the revolution to solve a challenge that was not unique to Cuba: the need to provide mandatory prenatal medical care to high-risk pregnant women who lived far from the nearest hospital. This was also a trend in Cuba. Many countries in Africa and Latin America face similar challenges. High-risk situations present with having had a C-section in the past, previous stillbirth, previous low birth weight, uterine rupture, multiples, and more.
Zulina Bustamante Sosa, a Cuban mother of twins and resident of Havana, shared her experience of staying in a pregnancy home 11 years ago:
“My delight with motherhood was complicated at first. It’s not easy to be away from home, my husband and my family. Over time, I understood the importance of all the care I received.
“They woke us up at 7 a. m. to take our blood pressure, they controlled our diets, which were different, as well as the care protocols. The doctor gave us regimen checkups every day. There were educational presentations and discussions from other professionals, adding preventive care, exercise, methods of preventing infections, pregnancy and lactation, and preventing dicy behaviors. Technicians from the nearby medical clinic did blood tests on the spot and took us to the nearby clinic. for ultrasound and other tests.
“I was admitted because it was my first pregnancy and I was pregnant with twins, which is even considered high risk, although I never felt bad about the pregnancy. The doctor discussed the effects of the tests and analyses privately with everyone. patient, and it was up to her to discharge patients. Family and friends can make a stop every day. I was there from my 20th week of pregnancy until the 38th week, then I was transferred to the hospital where I stayed for a week. Everything was planned, adding the cesarean section, which was a success. In the end, I was as comfortable there as I would have been at home, and I’m so glad I could have done it because my daughters deserve it.
“The doctors and especially the nurses who attended us night and day were wonderful, disciplined and kind. I’m still in touch with some of them,” he said. her twins were healthy and able to leave home and leave on the third day. Most women begin prenatal maternity leave at 34 weeks of pregnancy and 32 weeks if they use multiples.
Bustamante had a year of paid leave from the birth of his young children until they joined the kindergarten. Her husband had 3 months of unpaid leave for one year. He returned to his post at the end of this period. The new Family Code and the amendments to the law will make it possible to transfer paid leave to anyone interested in the child, whether grandparent, father, aunt or uncle. A national referendum will be held on 25 September to approve the Family Code.
My son stayed in the NICU for 8 more days. I tried to breastfeed and the first few days I learned to turn on and identify a regimen that required attempts every two hours. There was no overnight accommodation in the NICU, only a personal room for day use with a sofa available to all families with young children in the NICU. The directors gave me permission to use the sofa at night, as long as I didn’t occupy the room during the day.
Faced with this unlikely situation, my own framework exhausted by work, one of the treating doctors of the NICU approached me to inspire me to seek inner peace and not stress me, for the sake of my son, warn me that otherwise So would not be my milk These kind words were not enough to alleviate the mental and physical misery I felt when separating from my son at this vital moment, which deserve to have been resolved without setbacks.
Right now in the United States, women’s physical health care is under attack in states across the country due to the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned and invalidated Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed legal abortion. Even before that time, the maternal mortality crisis in the United States is well documented: The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries, with many deaths from preventable causes. Black women are 3 times more likely to die than white women. Stories of racist and xenophobic comments, failure to listen, and worse outcomes for other people of color, and black women in particular, abound in the fitnesscare system. There is not enough postpartum help and there are not enough maternity care providers (obstetricians and midwives). In 2018, for example, the United States had 11 obstetricians and 4 midwives available for 1,000 live births, compared to 12 and 66, respectively, in Sweden. People are struggling to pay their bills and access care. A 1993 US law established the circle of family and medical leave: 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The circle of paid medical leave of relatives is elusive and the security of the task is not guaranteed. None of these disorders is addressed through a Cuban parent who, in addition to having access to paid leave, also has job security.
Comparing fitness indices between the United States and Cuba is like comparing apples to oranges. Arguably, one country is the strongest and most evolved in the world, and the other is a country suffocated by the U. S. blockade for 60 years. mortality rates are more consistent in the United States than in Cuba: deaths consistent with 1,000 live births in 2017: 3. 4, 5. 4, and 6. 3 in the United States, compared to 2. 4, 4. 1, and 5. 1 in Cuba. The high point of medical education fundamental problems and preventive care among the population, and the fact that family doctors and nurses care for others at the point of the community with a built-in system of care, contribute to these positive indicators.
While in the United States the fight against the social and economic repression of women continues, in Cuba medical care is weak for all, higher education is weak for those who want it and jobs are guaranteed. supposedly, to protest against the violation of human rights. Obviously this is a lie, as this example and many others demonstrate. The United States lifts sanctions against Cuba, removes Cuba from the list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and normalizes industrial relations. Meanwhile, in the United States, we focus on knowing the right to abortion, improving maternal and child care, and making physical care lax and available to all, basic human rights that Cuba grants to its people.
Photo caption: Cuban fitness at the local maternity hospital in Villa Clara