Barbara,
RE: Breastfeeding Rates increase among WIC participants.  A couple of years
ago I attended a CEU session sponsored by Ross Labs given by the man who is
the head statistician collecting all the data from their mothers survey.  (I
was attending nursing school, the session was in the building, I couldn't
resist the opportunity, but did resist the freebies!)

He presented a very long and detailed explanation of how the surveys are
collected and analyzed.  It's actually very scary.  They can practically
pinpoint which docs are recommending which formulas.  The data was broken
down by several criteria; geography, economic level, age group, etc.  The
most significant was this:
While the majority of women who choose to breastfeed are college educated,
white, and middle income, the HIGHEST RATE OF INCREASE is occurring in lower
income, not necessarily white, not necessarily college-educated, ie. WIC
participants.

At that time (1993), he stated that he didn't know why the increase was
taking place in WIC.  Well, I couldn't resist the opportunity of telling
about the peer counselor program and WIC's commitment to promote
breastfeeding.  He conceded that obviously, it's working.

I've received several reports from Ross Labs since then as we try to track
breastfeeding rates in the general population, but I've never seen a report
broken down quite so well.  Based on the increase in bf rates in WIC in
Texas, I believe we're still making a significant dent in rates overall.

Let me know if you'd like a copy of this early report from 1992.

Jeanne Fisher
Austin, TX