ABSTRACT Descriptive cross-sectional study with 417 pregnant women and 388 lactating women, belonging to a Comprehensive Care Program in Bogotá. A modular survey was applied with sociodemographic and health variables analyzed by frequency distributions, central tendency, and dispersion, with bivariate and multivariate analyses used to calculate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals. 17% were under 18 years of age. Only 66.8% of all of the women had immediate skin-to-skin contact with their child. The risk factors for skin-to-skin contact and early initiation of breastfeeding were type of delivery (cesarean) (OR: 23.15, 95% Cl: 12.99,41.25) and (OR: 2.6, 95% Cl: 1.43, 4.73) respectively; In addition, newborn hospitalization for more than 3 days was also a risk factor for the early initiation of breastfeeding (OR: 2.85, 95% Cl: 1.42, 5.72). Not having skin-to-skin contact between the mother and her newborn was a risk factor for the early initiation of breastfeeding (OR: 2.43; Cl: 1.34; 4.41).