Sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was picking on WIC. The WIC program is separate from the food stamp program. The WIC program has several differences than the food stamp (now LINK) program. First, it's only for pregnant women and women with small children. They can only purchase some healthy foods with it. While with the food stamps people can get almost anything with a few exceptions. LINK/food stamps can be used them to buy soda, candy, or whatever. The reason we have WIC was that years ago, many pregnant women couldn't afford nutritious food, and they would often have sick, preterm or malnourished babies as a result. So they give them some milk, cheese, eggs, etc. The WIC program has greatly reduced the number of sick babies born in the US as a result. However, I don't think it's wrong for us to look at some of the possible problems with this program, since as soon as it was implemented, the rate of breastfeeding among poor women dropped like a rock in this country. It's a problem. I'm not disparaging the program, but if we don't discuss these problems they can't be addressed. I just brought it up because I've had a number of women tell me that they have been saying they are breastfeeding just to get the bigger food package now and using their food stamps to buy formula. Thought you all might want to be aware because it will affect data collection. But what can we do? Nobody is going to force women to breastfeed and take away the formula, and I'm not suggesting they should. It needs to be their informed choice. But the system is very confusing for many women. I work with many women who are immigrants and they tell me that they find us all very confusing. In other countries, breastfeeding is very normal. Here, they get thrown out of a mall for breastfeeding, there are advertisements for formula everywhere, formula is not and breastfeeding is not, then they are given formula by the government, and then we tell them to breastfeed. They often find us to be very confusing here in the US. We don't want people to be malnourished, however, at the same time many women do feel that because they are getting formula from the "government" that it is an endorsement of formula as being healthier for the baby even though the workers at the WIC clinics make every effort to convince them otherwise. So this is where we are stuck. It's a problem. The position of the government has been largely to tackle this problem through increased education. But it will likely take a long, long time.
Tricia Shamblin, RN, IBCLC
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