During the year 2022, the Maternal and Child Care Program (PAMI by its Spanish initials) focused its efforts on improving strategies to guarantee the well-being of children, pregnant women, and postpartum women in Ciego de Ávila.

The province of Ciego de Avila maintained a mortality rate of 6.2 despite the new measures incorporated into the different services, such as the neonatology service at the Antonio Luaces Iraola Provincial Teaching Hospital, where Ladisbel Rodríguez Placeres reported that they decided to maintain the least possible intervention on the newborn, avoiding tube feeding and instead introducing small drops of milk through syringes.

The objective of this practice is to bring them to exclusive breastfeeding as quickly as possible, maintaining it for its effectiveness.

The main causes of infant mortality in children under one year of age, were perinatal conditions, mainly related to low birth weight, prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation, in addition to congenital malformations and sepsis, Causa Palma, the national head of PAMI, explained.

Dr. Noemí Causa Palma, national head of PAMI, stated that the new measures to reduce prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation were among the adopted actions, a comprehensive evaluation of the operation of maternity homes was carried out to increase the occupational index, teaching and professional improvement activities were completed and the quality of care processes was strengthened in the Neonatology, Pediatrics, Gynecology and Pediatric Intensive Care services.

Despite the efforts of the health personnel, the PAMI did not achieve the desired results. At the end of the year, the Directorate of Medical Records and Statistics of MINSAP refers, as preliminary data, that 95,402 live births were reported on the Island, 3,694 less than the previous year, and the nation registered an infant mortality rate of 7.5 per thousand live births, with 39 fewer deaths than in 2021, when a rate of 7.6 was reported.