Breastfeeding is Best
Research has shown breast milk is the best food you can
provide to your baby for their first year of life. Breastfeeding not only
provides health and nutritional benefits but it is also inexpensive. Knowing
this, the government funded program, WIC, made changes to improve breastfeeding
rates but according to a report published in July the program changes were
unsuccessful.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants and Children, better known as WIC, is a government funded program whose
goal is to improve the nutritional status of women and their children. WIC
is a program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and
Nutrition Service (FNS) that provides food packages, nutrition education,
and referrals to low income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding
women, infants, and children (up to age 5).
In 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examined the food
packages provided by WIC to determine if redesigning the food packages could
further improve the nutritional status of WIC participants. From the
suggestions made by the IOM, USDA published an Interim Rule changing the composition and quantities of foods in the food
packages offered to new mothers. The intent of this change was to encourage
mothers to choose breastfeeding for their infants.
The
report published in July determined that the changes implemented by WIC were
unsuccessful at increasing the rate of women breastfeeding their babies. The
report concluded that
An objective of the policy changes was to encourage adoption of the full breastfeeding package and to promote breastfeeding. However, the changes in package options could, in principle, have multiple effects. First, even if infant feeding choices are predetermined or fixed, the policy change could have a reclassification effect that leads fewer cases to be assigned partial breastfeeding status and more cases to be assigned full formula status, without greatly influencing actual breastfeeding behaviors in either direction. A mother who relies principally on infant formula, supplemented by breastfeeding, could have been classified as partial breastfeeding before implementation and full formula after implementation. In this case, there would have been a change in package assignments without large effects on breastfeeding outcomes…
In essence, the new program forced women to choose full
bottle feeding or full breastfeeding and reduced the number of women trying to
do both.
This is
an example of a policy change that did not meet the intended outcome. What
policy changes could be made in order to encourage WIC participants to choose
breastfeeding over formula?
Sources:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/WIC-Fact-Sheet.pdf
http://www.fns.usda.gov/Ora/menu/Published/WIC/FILES/BirthMonth_ExecSummary.pdf
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2005/WIC-Food-Packages-Time-for-a-Change/wic8pagerwithtables.pdf
Even though this report shows that no changes were found in breastfeeding intensity and small, but not significant, increases were seen in breastfeeding duration, the Interim Rule should be seen as the first of many policy changes to come that tries to increase the number of mothers actively breastfeeding through the WIC. Recruiting pregnant women during various Dr. appointments by explaining to them the advantages of breastfeeding could be another way to possibility get them to think more about it before the time to make the decision comes.
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