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The hospital Abel Santamaría Cuadrado in Pinar del Río has incorporated the so-called attachment octopuses into its neonatal intensive care unit, becoming one of the first Cuban institutions to adopt this practice, which is already implemented in dozens of countries. The news was reported on Saturday by the Guerrillero Newspaper, the official media of the province, with statements from the head of the provincial Neonatology service.
Neonatal octopuses are small crochet dolls whose tentacles mimic the umbilical cord, creating a sensation in the newborn that is similar to the intrauterine environment.
Doctor Yamila Salgado Caraballo, head of the provincial Neonatology service at Abel Santamaría Cuadrado, explained exclusively to the Cuban News Agency that "its tentacles mimic the umbilical cord, which helps babies feel in an environment similar to that of the uterus."
According to the specialist, the clinical benefits are numerous: "they provide patients with more security, regulate their heart and respiratory rates, and prevent them from tugging on the tubes or medical lines."
Salgado Caraballo also emphasized that the dolls "ensure a deeper and higher quality sleep and, as a result, greater weight gain and better neurodevelopment in newborns," and that they "help reduce stress in babies who are subjected to invasive procedures and bright lights."
A detail that reveals the deficiencies of the Cuban healthcare system, and of society in general, is the origin of the first samples used in the service. The doctor herself explained it plainly: "The first octopuses were knitted by one of our nurses because there is no place where we can acquire them." Later, the project Renacer a la vida got in touch with the hospital and has been donating the dolls to the service.
The octopuses must meet precise technical specifications to ensure the safety of newborns. According to Salgado Caraballo, “the head should measure between seven and nine centimeters and be filled with synthetic material resistant to high temperatures; the tentacles must not exceed 22 centimeters; and the thread used must be 100 percent cotton.” Furthermore, “before placing them in the incubators, they are individually bagged and sent to the sterilization center.”
The initiative arrived in the province through exchanges with the national group of Neonatology in Havana. According to the specialist, these meetings included "the presence of members from UNICEF," which provides international institutional support to the practice.
The attachment octopuses originated in Denmark in 2012, when volunteer knitter Josefine Hagen Solgaard created the first one for a premature baby. From that experience, the Danish Octo Project (Spruttegruppen DK) was born in 2013, a charitable initiative that began providing these crocheted octopuses free of charge to Danish hospitals and soon expanded across Europe, Latin America, and other continents.
In Spain, the NGO NOUPOPS "Thread for Life" was founded in February 2017 to officially develop the project in that country. According to the latest data shared by the organization itself, the original Danish project has already delivered more than 60,000 octopuses to participating hospitals.
The Neonatology service at Abel Santamaría Cuadrado is a key component of the Maternal and Child Health Program in Pinar del Río, a region that recorded the lowest infant mortality rate in the country in 2025: 4.7 per 1,000 live births, compared to a national average of 9.9, according to data from the Ministry of Public Health. The service also reported a 99% survival rate that year, results that contributed to Pinar del Río being chosen as the site for the national event on July 26, 2026.
This contrast between the indicators from Pinar del Río and the national average reflects a broader reality: the infant mortality rate in Cuba nearly doubled between 2018, when it was 4.0 per thousand, and 2025. The regime attributes this deterioration to the economic crisis and the U.S. embargo; however, experts and independent organizations also link it to the structural collapse of the healthcare system after decades of centralized management and chronic shortages of medical supplies.
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