Thread: fertility rate for Hispanics on rise in S. Florida

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Fueled by culture of large families, fertility rate for Hispanics on rise in S. Florida




By Tal Abbady
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

August 21, 2006



The women contemplate their rising stomachs. Music mingles with the instructor's lulling words:

"Pregnancy is part of a woman's condition, and it's the best thing that could have happened to me," Mercedes Delgado, in a soft mantra, tells students sprawled on mats. She teaches Hispanic women about meditation, nutrition and exercises that help stimulate a baby's growth in the womb and after birth.

The demand for classes like Delgado's is high in a region where many Hispanics are starting families.

While the national fertility rate for Hispanics has declined in recent years, it is rising in Broward and Palm Beach counties, where family planning among Latinas is often a fine balance of religious values, economic survival and self-determination.

Around the country, the Hispanic fertility rate remains well above those of non-Hispanic whites and blacks, and census numbers show Hispanic births are driving roughly 70 percent of the increase in children under 5. The community's relative youth -- most Hispanic women in the United States are in their childbearing years -- and high fertility rates among some immigrant groups help propel the numbers.

Maryluz Velez, 31, a student in Delgado's class at Hispanic Unity of Florida in Hollywood is expecting her second child, a boy she and her husband plan to name Mateo, in December.

"Children are a blessing," she said during a break in the class titled "Nuestras Familias," or "Our Families." "They're a gift God puts in your hands. But they're also a huge responsibility."

She has a 7-year-old daughter and wants to have a third child after Mateo. But she'll stop at three. Velez grew up with nine siblings in Valledupar, Colombia, and, like many immigrants who assimilate, she does not want more children than she can handle.

"I think three is a good number for a happy family," said Velez, whose husband works in a jewelry store. "My mother never had a plan for herself. She never had a choice as far as how many children she wanted, and we grew up with little food and clothing. I don't want my children to grow up as I did."

Miguelina Aguirre, 35, of Lake Worth, is breathless at the end of her day working and taking care of four girls, ages 3 to 16. She grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, one of four children. Her mother gave birth to nine children, five of whom died in infancy.

"We come from a culture of large families. The larger the family the more united it is. And Hispanic parents are always thinking, `When this one gets married, I'll still have these others to keep me company,'" said Aguirre, who is an outreach worker at In the Pines west of Delray Beach. A devout Catholic, she is wary of contraceptives.

"When we got married the priest told us, `Accept the children God gives you.' As Hispanics, we are nothing without family," she said.

But like Velez, she did not want to be as overwhelmed as her own parents were. Her husband, a landscaper, wanted seven children.

"We just couldn't handle any more if we wanted to get ahead," Aguirre said.

As it is, she can't afford to buy Dulce, 16, the present-day hallmarks of adolescence: a cell phone and fashionable clothes. Neither can she afford day care for her 3-year-old, Isabel, whom she totes to work every day.

Despite the trend toward smaller families, in 2004, Hispanics had the highest fertility rate of all ethnic groups, with 98 births per 1,000 women, compared with 59 births for whites and 67 births for blacks, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Among Hispanic women, Mexicans have the highest fertility rate, followed by Puerto Ricans.

The rising numbers of uninsured immigrant women who need prenatal care -- roughly 30 percent of Latinos lack insurance, according to census figures -- is a pressing concern for those working to get Latino children on an upwardly mobile track.

Cathy Cohn, director of Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies of Palm Beach County, said her Delray Beach agency helped 2,500 women get prenatal care in 2005. Almost half, or 1,100, were Hispanic. The agency's workers knock on doors in Hispanic neighborhoods to talk to women about prenatal care.

Cohn and others argue that good prenatal care bodes well for a child's future, including school achievement.

With the population's youth and rapid growth, the country's fate may well depend on how well Latino students do in school, says William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in New York City.

"Our future is very much tied to the fate of Hispanic kids. This group of people is going to be a large part of our labor force 20 years from now. We need to make sure they're prepared and that they don't founder," he said. He said Hispanics now make up 21 percent of the under-5 population. That number will rise to 30 percent in 2025.

In South Florida, the constant stream of arriving Latinos for whom large families are a source of pride will likely keep the baby boom alive.

Puerto Rican-born Carmen Bou Cuza, of Weston, has no regrets about the teeming household she runs with her husband, an attorney.

"None of them were planned," she says with a laugh about her six children, ages 2 to 15. "There's a reason for each of my children's births. They're all blessings."

Tal Abbady can be reached at tabbady@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4523.
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The agency's workers knock on doors in Hispanic neighborhoods to talk to women about prenatal care.

No one knocked on my door telling me anything about anything.

If they did.....there better not be the daddy there either. SINGLE women ONLY. No husbands.....no live in boyfriends.

This aid has been including their entire family. That was un-heard of before. I remember when they shut the steel mills down in Pittsburgh. People were really struggling and many ended up getting divorced just so the woman could get food stamps to feed the kids. It kept people from getting married because they couldn't get it if they were and it made people divorce in order for some help.

That's when I realized all the preaching about "family values" was a crock.

"For the sake of the children" was only for single women with kids. Not for single dads.

No help for single people.

There was help my mom could have gotten but my dad would have had to divorce her. Fit the poor financial profile and everything. But they were "married" God forbid. 55 years of marraige and told to divorce if they wanted the help. Needless to say, Dad threw them out of the house.