HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 22 (acn) Dr. José Luis Di Fabio, representative in Cuba of the Pan American and World Health organizations (PAHO / WHO) praised today in this city the country’s progress in the care of pregnant women.
Exclusively to ACN, Di Fabio highlighted the quality of primary services the state provides to pregnant women, as well as after their giving birth, in which stands out maternity leave, period needed to create the link with the newborn.
He commented the need to prevent maternal mortality, multi-causal fact affecting Latin America and the Caribbean, resulting from the lack of quality services, teen pregnancy, abortions and many others that impact negatively.
The recent WHO report warned that one in five maternal deaths in the region are a result of obstetric hemorrhage during or immediately after birth, many of them preventable.
Therefore, both non-governmental organizations began the initiative Zero maternal deaths due to hemorrhage in the countries of Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti, Peru and Dominican Republic, the ones with largest index.
“A woman dying from lack of blood means not only a problem in attention, but that there is no access to this vital liquid”, he said.
Data show that 8.2 percent of pregnant women giving birth in the area will require a transfusion, so it is urgent to solve these problems, Millennium Development Goals that the region will probably not met, Di Fabio stated.
“We must work together to advance in this topic, each death should be investigated to know and try to solve the problem, because motherhood shouldn’t be cause for death, but a right to life,” he noted.
In turn, regarding infant mortality, he added that a significant reduction has been achieved, in which Cuba prevails as example for Latin America and the Caribbean.
