Reflections on Saving Cuban Mothers and Babies

For many of us, the thought that our US foreign policy is continuing to cause deaths and suffering has moved us to take action to change those policies and to provide international solidarity to the peoples of those countries. This is what moved me and five other women from US Women and Cuba Collaboration, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee, to go to Cuba to investigate and see for ourselves the impact of the US-imposed oil embargo on Cuba, especially on women and children. What we found was heartbreaking and very difficult. What we left with was a deepening resolve to work together with Cuban women to end the 66-year-old US blockade of Cuba.

Over the course of one week, Global Health Partners and others arranged for our delegation to visit two maternity hospitals, a pediatric hospital, a maternity home, an economic development project led by women, and to attend a discussion with top Cuban Public Health officials about the present healthcare crisis facing the Cuban people, especially the alarming increase in infant and maternal mortality rates. In the first six months of 2026, the infant mortality rate, which used to be four deaths per 1,000 births, is now 11.2 deaths per 1,000 births in Havana, 14.4 deaths per 1,000 nationwide, and in Santiago and Guantanamo, eastern Cuba, it is even higher with the maternal mortality rate increasing.

For the Cuban doctors, nurses and administrators we met with in the maternity and pediatric hospitals, these deaths have caused extreme emotional and mental challenges because, as they told us, Cuba knows how to save the lives of women and babies. Cuba formerly had the lowest rates of infant mortality in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, and in fact, in some areas in the US. However, Cuba has faced enormous challenges since the first Trump administration wrongly placed Cuba on the list of countries that support state terrorism. Trump enforced an oil embargo last January that has halted the importation of oil to Cuba, causing electrical blackouts of up to 48 hours, and making it very difficult for patients, especially pregnant women, to go to maternity hospitals for x-rays or needed tests. Furthermore, with no ships coming to Cuba, this has cut off the import of medications and hospital supplies, food, including milk for infants, vitamins, including prenatal vitamins, and machine parts to fix incubators and fetal monitors.

Hospital nurses are working, often times, for 24-48 hour shifts. The head doctor at the Ramon Gonzalez Coro Obstetric Hospital had been on duty for 24 hours with no sleep and had delivered 18 babies during her shift. At Eusebio Hernandez Perez Hospital, usually there are 20-30 births per day, and, where they used to have 834 staff, only about 375 people are now actually working. Many have left the healthcare field due to these difficult working conditions. But when we asked one of the doctors why they stay, she said, “We Cuban doctors have principles that no one can break. We are trained to give healthcare for free, and if I had to do this all again, I would do it again.”

In the next few months, our organizations will launch a long-term campaign between US and Cuban women to support pregnant women and their babies. In the meantime, we encourage you to visit Global Health Partners at www.ghpartners.org. Please give generously to the Neonatal and Maternal Healthcare Initiative to buy supplies and equipment to stop the rising infant and maternal mortality rates. Contact your Congressional delegation as well, and tell them to end the blockade and build peaceful relations with Cuba.