<And I must also throw into the discussion that I find it offensive when
anyone portrays the vast majority of WIC mothers as being ignorant and
careless about their babies' health.  WIC is for POOR PEOPLE, not STUPID
PEOPLE.  Poor does not equal stupid, or even uneducated.>

If I am one that gives the impression that I am categorizing WIC mothers
this way, I am woefully misunderstood! I would hope that it's clear that I
fight *against* this idea constantly, wherever I find it. WIC mothers are
neither careless nor ignorant nor lazy; they are, however, more scrutinized
and evaluated than most higher-income families. Most mothers don't have to
be subjected to regular scrutiny about how many times a day their kids eat
which  vegetables, and whether or not they have refrigeration and/or cooking
facilities and drinkable water, and regularly answer questions about how
many people are living in their household and where the household income
comes from either. Women on WIC are constantly being "evaluated" and
"assessed" - very often, you can read that as "judged".

I too have been a WIC mom, and required to attend the little classes about
"safe" formula preparation, even though I was a nurse who had taught that
class in the hospital to the new moms, as well as BFing classes. My first
visit to WIC was right after I'd had my twins - about a week after I got out
of the hospital; they had told me not to bring the babies (since I was
refusing formula anyway), so I (foolishly!) complied. I sat there in the
waiting room for a couple of hours, politely inquiring every few minutes how
much longer it would be; after a couple of hours of this, I lost my patience
completely. My breasts were leaking, dripping, bursting, flowing, and my
babies were home with their grandma, certainly crying to be fed, and I burst
to my feet declaiming loudly that this was supposed to be a program to help
me feed my children, and here were my newborn babies NOT getting fed while I
was here leaking all over their office; I didn't see that this was helping
me feed my family! Well, suffice it to say that I was given my WIC checks
pretty darn quickly and my "certification" was "deferred" till another day!
Out the door with that crazy woman (hormones, dontcha know?)!

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC (getting all steamed up over this whole WIC/formula
issue - think I'll give it a rest while I go calm down!)

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