Resumen

ROMAN LAFONT, Joaquín; ALVAREZ VALDES, Gisela  y  IZQUIERDO IZQUIERDO, María Elena. History of Puericulture in Cuba. Rev Cubana Pediatr [online]. 2017, vol.89, n.2, pp. 252-268. ISSN 1561-3119.

In the Middle Age, children were treated as small adults. As of Renassaince, more interest on childhood was aroused. In 1722, the term Pediatrics appears in Central Europe, and in 1865 for the first time the term Puericulture was coined by Alfred Pierre Caron, professor at the University of Paris. The puericulture service in Cuba in the first half of the 20th century was a sort of luxury. After 1959, the unique health system and the total coverage of primary health care managed to set pediatric (1960) and puericulture (1963) services in polyclinics. The new approach to the preventive-healing medical practice had an impact on the development of puericulture with programs such as comprehensive care to the child and the woman, the standardization of specialties, the reduction of infant mortality, the evaluation of health indicators in the Cuban 0-19 years old population, the classification of the health conditions of children and adolescents, prenatal puericulture as well as the evaluation of "Friends of the mother and the child hospitals and polyclinics". In 2004, a multidisciplinary group was created to rescue the quality of the puericultural service and the National Center of Reference of Puericulture was opened up in 2007 which carries out teaching, research, assistance-methodological and administrative functions. The information search through Infomed and Internet, visits to specialized libraries and to the office of the historian of the Ministry of Public Health about how puericulture was introduced in Cuba shows surprising aspects.

Palabras clave : puericulture; pediatrics; childhood; adolescence; history; prevention; consultations.

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