The international Prosalud project is working in the province of Holguin to prevent and control teenage pregnancy, one of the indicators prioritized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (Unicef).
This program, which began in 2020, has already been extended to seven municipalities in this north eastern territory, which prioritizes care and promotion in the doctor’s offices, even in rural and hard-to-reach areas, where this problem is common.
Maite Blanco Lao, first degree specialist in Pediatrics and General Comprehensive Medicine, stressed to ACN that Holguín is the second Cuban province with the highest number of pregnant women between 11 and 16 years of age, therefore there is a multisectoral strategy focused on prevention as a way to reduce this indicator.
She pointed out that the Prosalud project includes the localities of Cacocum, Urbano Noris, Mayarí, Báguanos, Calixto García and the provincial capital city, and carries out programs on sexual and reproductive health of this vulnerable population.
Blanco Lao, also a pediatrician at the Maternal and Child Section of the General Directorate of Public Health, added that the program consists on increasing professionals’ training, to provide contraceptive methods, and conduct surveys and case studies, aimed at preventing pregnancy or bring it to a successful conclusion.
Currently, the territory has received several batches of contraceptive implants intended only for adolescents with an active sexual life through the infant and child consultations of each health area and the Octavio de la Concepción de la Pedraja Provincial Pediatric Hospital, she said.
Holguín is also developing a joint strategy with the Education Directorate aimed at counteracting risky behaviors such as hidden pregnancy, for which a team is being for which a multidisciplinary team made up of pediatricians, psychologists, obstetricians, psychiatrists and pediatricians, psychologists, obstetricians, among other related specialties.
Prosalud, financed by Unicef, is integrated into the health care systems of several health systems in several Latin American countries in order to have a positive impact on the development of adolescents and young adults through lectures, conferences and surveys.
With information from Cuban News Agency / Translated by Radio Angulo
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