Madrid/Pioneer in the unprecedented worsening of infant mortality in Cuba, the province of Ciego de Ávila does not raise its head in maternity and neonatology. Of the 1,393 pregnant women registered in the province, 351 – that is, 25.2%, a quarter – have some nutritional problem, including 88 with anemia. The figures are provided by the official press itself, in a published note this same monday.
The territory is not only above the national average for malnutrition in pregnant women – no less than 22.5% –, along with Guantánamo, Granma and Santiago de Cuba, but also for malnutrition in infants. Of 2,807 children under one year old, 125 – 4.5% – suffer from it, which places Ciego de Ávila in third place for this problem, only behind Granma and Santiago de Cuba. Among infants, it indicates Invader260 have “associated social risk”, the official expression to indicate extreme poverty.
The number of maternity homes is also lagging behind, only 11 for 10 municipalities, two of which present “structural problems.” In three municipalities, the provincial newspaper continues, they do not even have a maternal home, and the pregnant women must enter the polyclinics instead. The note, in fact, is illustrated with one of these centers, the one in Florence, closed and half built, when, words of Invader“it should be finished in the first quarter of the year.”
The number of maternity homes is also lagging behind, only 11 for 10 municipalities, two of which present “structural problems”
In the municipality of Primero de Enero, the home is 60% complete, according to the official media, Bolivia “has the location defined without having started the process.”
Furthermore, it indicates InvaderCiego de Ávila “is among the provinces with the largest number of municipalities – all of which are part of it – that do not guarantee the delivery of all the products stipulated in the 06.02 diet”, the one medically prescribed for pregnant women.
The shortage includes cribs, mattresses and even weights for adults in the offices: 137 of these are missing, “with no possibility of immediate replacement because they are imported equipment,” indicates the provincial newspaper.
The figures do not make the panorama of teenage pregnancy clear, but Invader It does report that 10 pregnant women aged 15 or younger “refuse to enter maternity homes.” It is of little use that they indicate that the province “has 29 pregnant women and two infants awaiting a solution” to provide them with a basket, nor that they are working to “resolve” that 48 pregnant women, 10 breastfeeding women and two children “without a registered home address” are not receiving a diet, a basket, a crib, or a mattress.
The number of people “in preparation” for the Home Social Assistance Service gives the measure of precariousness: only 456 for Ciego de Ávila, Havana, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Holguín, Granma and Santiago de Cuba.
And precariousness will undoubtedly have an impact on maternal and child health data. According to the Ministry of Public Health, Cuba closed 2025 with a figure of 9.9 per 1,000 live birthscompared to the 7.1 recorded the previous year, almost 3 points more in just 12 months.
In the last session of the Cuban Parliament, last December, the prime minister Manuel Marrero had given an outline of the problem, reporting that the rate reached 9.7 and recognized the “deterioration” of that health indicator.
The speed with which this sector has advanced in the country is alarming. The trend that was already observed in mid-2025, when the infant mortality rate increased to 8.2 per 1,000 births, it was then almost one point above what was recorded in the same period of 2024. By then, the arbovirus epidemic – chikungunya and dengue – that claimed the majority of fatalities among the under 18 years old.
In Cuba, 68,051 births were registered last year, with 3,108 fewer born than in 2024, according to official figures.
Very far away is that moment in 2018 when the infant mortality rate was an example for the region, when the country registered 3.9 per 1,000 live births, the best figure in the entire American continent.
The same happens with the figures on the maternal mortality rate recorded in 2025. The health authorities reported that it was 44.1 per 100,000 live births, against 40.6 in 2024, and specified that “the increase from one year compared to the other was one maternal death.”
