WIC is Women, Infants and Children - a food program in the US - government-run, provides free formula, cereal, juice, eggs, cheese, peanut butter etc. to needy families. Has long had a reputation for encouraging bottle feeding by providing all that free formula. Presently is working on promoting BF, with varying degrees of sucess. ABM is artificial baby milk, same as Australian AF - articial formula. HBV -someone posted this as Hepatitis B Virus. It's more general use is as an abbreviation for Hepatitis B Vaccine (at least in the circles I travel in). I think it is a good idea to gather up a list of abbreviations. Chele Marmet has a good list in her lactation forms. I also think we need to be culturally sensitive on Lactnet and spell things out. It only takes a few seconds more - and I don't even type! Pat Young in SNJ, USA