<WIC has only been
promoting breastfeeding for a few years, and still doens't promote it very
much in a lot of places.  La Leche League, on the other hand, has been
promoting and supporting and protecting breastfeeding for 43 years now, and
deserves top honors when it comes to breastfeeding promotion>

Yes, no question about that - what I meant was programs coming from public
funding or supported by community "agencies". Especially programs with
"teeth" - i.e., to get "X", you must do "Y".

Re: statistics, percentages, etc. - Well, we all know that there's "lies,
damn lies, and statistics", and that there are lots of ways to play with
numbers. What I do know, from being there and working with the women behind
the numbers, is that there are many women who, because of the education and
support they receive through WIC, do breastfeed their babies, who "normally"
(i.e. without that support and teaching) would not/do not do so.

I know this because I've been there with them; I compiled the BF stats for
our local agency every year, and because I personally worked with and knew
all of the BFing mothers I know who they are (as individuals, not numbers),
and I know that a certain number of them would not have nursed their babies
if it weren't for the support they got through WIC. NOT all of them, by any
means - but there are always those who wouldn't have started BFing, and many
more who wouldn't have persisted past the first little glitch, without the
WIC resources. I guess, because I've been there, I am looking at the
person-by-person view here - mother/baby by mother/baby, BF promotion
through WIC can be successful.

Kathy D's analysis of the statistics is one other way of looking at the
numbers - not the only way, or the only "legitimate" way, but another way.

<..stopping ALL formula handouts from WIC and spending that money on
breastfeeding support would result in a brief span of time when many infants
died, but the end result would be that
everyone would breastfeed (because they couldn't afford formula on their
own) and that the net outcome for children's health would be MUCH MUCH
better than having generation after generation of children grow up on
formula, with all its attendant health problems and IQ deficits.>

Maybe - I can agree with that statement as a theory, a postulation of an
ideal, but I would never be the one to try to put it to the test. The world
being the yeasty, complicated place that it is, I absolutely do not agree
that "everyone would breastfeed" if formula from WIC were stopped. If I
thought that that were true, that if free formula weren't available and that
there would be a "brief span of time when many infants died" followed by
universal BFing and all of its attendant ripple effects, I still wouldn't
buy it. I'd like to, and again, in theory I agree - but those infants who
would die or (far worse) struggle along doing poorly are people's children,
and I guess I've gotten used to the myopic short view.

Women BF where they have no choice - in the recent war in Kosovo, for
example, we read about this. But it's also true that wherever there are
options (and note I didn't say "good" options!), a certain number of women
have always elected to not BF. Now, you or I might not view Kool-Aid or
watered-down cow's milk or liquid jello as options to breastmilk, but many
women unfortunately do.

>You can't measure the impact of WIC formula giveaways only in terms of "X
number of babies who didn't die."  You have to also factor in "Y number of
babies who were sick, throughout their lives, had cognitive impairments,
were not bonded to their moms."  Not to mention all the health costs to the
mothers of not breastfeeding.>

Agreed - but I still don't think that, given the US ABM-as-norm culture,
which is our starting point, we would achieve the goals of universal BFing
and its attendant "benefits". I do think that more money in WIC should be
shifted into the BF program (obviously!). Sadly, the current seems to be
going the other way these days - not acceptable!

WIC, infant feeding and parenting,and all the results that flow thereform,
don't exist in a vacuum. If *I* ran the world, all babies would be breastfed
as long as they wanted to, all women would know their own strength and
power, hunger would be eradicated from the globe, and there would be peace
and mutual understanding & respect among all peoples. There wouldn't be any
need for programs like WIC. And it would never get over 75 degrees F, and
there would be exactly the right amount of rain and snow, and...But someone
forgot to name me the Supreme Boss, so I figure we have to do the best we
can, starting from where we are right now.

Babies are babies, not statistics, and people, being people, don't
necessarily do the obvious, sensible, logical thing - i.e. universal
exclusive breastfeeding - with or without "free" formula.

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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