A total of 111 pregnancies were achieved in Guantanamo in 2018 at the Infertile Couple Care Program, the only one of its kind in the world and a strategic for the State for its sensitivity and contributions to the birth rate in Cuba.
Through this assistance, couples who after a year of frequent unprotected sexual intercourse do not achieve the desired conception, may receive free treatment, so they are referred by their family doctor to the family planning consultation in the health area and then to the municipal ones, which work in the ten territories of Guantanamo.
A report from the Provincial Health Directorate states that during the past year at that primary level there were reported 4,242 infertile couples, 53.6 percent of those estimated in that situation, and 64 pregnancies were achieved, 7.1 per percent of the total number of patients attended.
Source: ACN
According to the protocol of the program, in this initial step, women under 35 years of age are evaluated, who undergo a study to determine the cause of infertility and initiate the procedures in search of the desired conception.
The treatments received by the couple include follicular monitoring (to verify the ovulation of the woman and the exact moment in which it occurs) and this method may be combined with the stimulation of ovulation, and if the cycle is not followed, the pregnancy, go to the second level or Provincial Assisted Reproduction Consultation (CPRA).
During 2018, 199 new couples were received, 45 inseminations were performed and 47 pregnancies were reached, which represents an effectiveness of 23.6 percent, above the national average (13 percent).
The cases without solution in the CPRA are directed to the Territorial Center of Assisted Reproduction, located in the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Hospital, in the province of Holguín.
Dr. Cosette Jiménez Vargas, a first-degree specialist in gynecology and head of the infertility consultation of the couple in the Guantanamo Municipality, told the ACN that the results of the program were affected last year, among other reasons, due to difficulties with the performance of hysterosalpingography, a radiological technique used in the examinations of the uterine cavity and the fallopian tubes to verify the possibility of fertilization.
She stressed that it is an essential test, which requires a contrast medium that was deficient and this caused delays in the follow-up of the cases, the high demand could not be covered, but once the substance was available, the exams continued.
Although Guantanamo is the youngest territory in Cuba, in 2017 and 2018, births declined by more than a thousand, while 20.1 percent of the country's population is 60 years old and over.
The network of services for the infertile couple was created in the country in 2007 and extends to all provinces and municipalities, and is endowed with trained human resources and appropriate technologies to facilitate the elementary human right to reproduction.