Welcome and Bienvenidos!

Latino Best Start is a national initiative funded in part by the WK Kellogg Foundation and designed to provide the tools and resources to support Hispanic serving organization in their effort to promote, educate and support breastfeeding and overall wellness in the Latino community.

Overview

About 1 in 6 people living in the U.S. identifies as Latino (nearly 57 million) and approximately 48% are Latinas. 1 in 5 women in the U.S. is Latina. By 2035, it is projected to be nearly 1 in 4 and by 2060, Latinas will form nearly a third of the female population of the nation.

Latinas have the least access to health care of any group of women. In 2011, 37% of Latinas were uninsured compared to just 14% of white women. The situation is even more bleak for immigrant women. Lack of access to health care for oneself and one’s family leads to chronic health conditions that steal time from both work and school, often meaning losing a job, or failing in school due to health-related absences.

Overview

In 2014 there were nearly 4 million births in the United States - 23% of those births were to Latina women. On average Latina mothers have relatively good birth outcomes compared to their non-Latina Black counterparts although health risks do vary between Latino subgroups. For example, in 2010 the Infant Mortality rate for Puerto Ricans was 7.1 per 1,000 and for Mexicans 5.1 per 1,000 compared to the national rate of 6.1 per 1,000.