I wanted to thank June & Jean on their insightful and supportive posts
regarding WIC.  As a WIC nutritionists & LC I understand the criticism
for the volumes of formula given out by the program. It saddens me to
see it in writing i.e. Riordan 2005 pg 18 where it black & white it says
that WIC spends $578 million/year on formula, because us breastfeeding
professionals know what a difference even a sliver of that would do if
it were spent on breastfeeding promotion, supporting WIC moms & us, &
multiplying our bf efforts by assisting with the training of more WIC
personel to become CLEs & IBCLCs.  However, I also know all that we do
on a limited budget & what a difference we make for our moms & their
babies.  Our moms get breastfeeding education (like June/Jean said) that
even non-WIC moms don't.  What they do with it many times depends on
their life (support, return to work, etc) & many times their unfortunate
hospital experience.  Many of the hospitals in Los Angeles are abissmal
when it comes to inpatient/outpatient breastfeeding support.  We now
have a program where I enroll newborns over the phone early, using this
technique my EBF rates have gone from 15% to 40-60%.  However, many moms
state their  babies are given formula in the hospitals by the nurses
even when thay asked them not too.  It is then our/my difficult job to
try to get them to confide in their body/breastfeeding again &
deconstruct the erroneous image of breastfeeding thay have, it does not
always work, many days you feel discouraged & deflated, but then as we
all know in lactation you  get 1 success story & it is all worth it.  No
matter the outcome, when moms tell you that no one ever explained &
educated them about breastfeeding like I/we did, I know that I am in the
right place, no matter how many other moms ask for formula.  Like Jean
says there are always things to improve, but like my mentor Gini Baker
(San Diego, CA) writes at the bottom of her e-mails writes, "To the
world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
 

Vanessa M. Annibali, MS, IBCLC

La Cienega WIC Center 

Nutritionist/Lactation Consultant

(310) 945-3696

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