WIC has been a big help to my family. My husband and I both work and we just don’t make enough to really live without struggling. We don’t get any other programs, only WIC. For a couple of months before my husband had surgery, his income had gone up some and we made just a bit over the allowed amount for 4 people, but now his income has dramatically dropped since he had his surgery. I am re-applying for WIC…my appt is next week.

Not everyone can breastfeed. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. My sister had very similar circumstance to mine with her 2 kids. It just doesn’t work for everyone.

I’m a new mother who wanted to exclusively breastfeed, and guess what, it never worked out for me. My son is 3 months old. I took breastfeeding classes, hired lactation consultants, and talked with doctors and nurses. I’ve been renting a hospital grade pump and purchased a very expensive electronic pump. I’m not that financial stable; I’m still paying off these things.

I try to use the expert advice I received in attempt to nurse every day. I have never been successful. I have been pumping since my son was 4 days old, when I originally resorted to pumping and feeding him with the bottle so he didn’t starve. And guess what, my nipples are still cracked, bruised, and bleed. They have blood blisters. I can’t hold my son unless I have breast pads and a thick bra on to protect them from ANY contact. I regularly feel like I am at my wits end trying to pump to keep up with my son’s increasing demand for food. But pumping isn’t a natural way to express breast milk, and it takes at least twice as long as breastfeeding.

Can you imagine feeding your son for twenty minutes, and then being hooked up to a milking machine for 40 minutes to an hour 8 to 12 times a day? You think that offering formula to low-income families is some kind of sin? Give me a break. What about women who aren’t able to produce milk? Should they just not have the right to have a child? Think about what you’re saying. Perhaps many people abuse the service, but that’s no reason to not offer it to those who need it.

Every day I consider throwing in the towel because this is both physically and emotionally painful. How dare you judge what you can not comprehend. If I had to go back to work, there is no way I could have the time to pump my son’s every meal. As a mother who does this for the sole benefit of giving her son every chance in life, I feel guilty enough without the judgement of ignorant, uninformed people.

Also, with breastfeeding – that’s totally you’re decision and your decision alone. Some people it would be better for them not to based on common factors like health. That’s totally your decision. In my experience there is not a great deal of difference between children that were and children that weren’t breastfeed. I know plenty from both sides with similar family backgrounds which are well adjusted and successful so it’s really the parents’ choice, as long as it’s made wisely.

A lot of people get on wic initially because of free formula. They could care less about nutrition education, referral serrvice, etc, that wic provides. Once the infant is off the formula they are less likely to come back for the other benefits of wic.

As a U.S. public health program it is our responsibility to promote breastfeeding as the main source of an infants diet. The cases stated above as to why women can’t b/feed i.e. HIV, not producing enough milk, inverted nipples etc., are very rare cases. Majority of the women that come thorugh wic can provide the infant w/breastmilk adequately for at least the first 6 months of life. The problem is that as a society we have screwed up misconceptions about the whole idea of breastfeeding. We must be educated about the benefits and that’s why wic promotes it so must because we are one of the only health care organizations who can educate the public about it. Six more IQ points in the long run can make a difference. We are not trying to guilt you to breastfeed, the program is trying to educate you. Formula companies lobby harder than the national wic association because they are private organizations so they have more money than the government to hire the top lobbyist.

Formula companies have more campaigns to promote their product but the government limits b/feeding advocates because they will make mothers feel “guilty” not to b/feed. Have you noticeed the only time you see promotion of b/feeding is in public health offices formula companies are everywhere so who is guilting whom?

Did it ever occur to you that without these “entitlements” to other peoples money, you would have plenty of money for those things that you need anyway. In other words what I am reading is that you need the “help” because of your economic condition, a condition that is at least partially brought about by the cost of the entitlements themselves.

One of the weaknesses of men is that many of them will take the path of least resistance when it comes to supporting their lives and opt to mooch off the thieves for money because it is easier than working

Let me provide some feedback from the side of a father who has had to utilize WIC. I would have been proud to have taken a job that allowed me to feed my family without any reliance on government resources. Unfortunately, at the time, for my area of the country I had two choices: work in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage, for become an over-the-road truck driver that keeps me away from my family for weeks at a time, and by the time I pay out my expenses including lodging, food and fuel, I end up making less than minimum wage. On top of that, there is only so many jobs to go around and so many hours in a day. My wife and I were already working full-time 8-12 hour per day jobs, 5-6 days a week.

I didn’t have a deep-pocketed or even extensive family and friends network who could help with expenses until I found something better, and there was nothing which indicated that my lack of sufficiently paying employment would be short term rather than long term (it ended up being three years).

People who use WIC, AFDC, food stamps and other government subsidy programs don’t do so because they’re too lazy to get a job, they don’t do so because they want to steal tax money from so-called “hard working Americans”, they do so because there is a real risk of people starving and dying in a land where nobody should have to lack for basic necessities to begin with. They use it because they have to, and having to do so most certainly kills some, if not most, of the pride and dignity that we try to retain for ourselves.

My wife has always dreamed of raising a family, but she certainly didn’t dream that she’d have to start it out on food stamps and WIC, that she’d have to do it in a less than desirable neighborhood, and that she’d have to do it working a shitty minimum wage job. Michael himself can vouch for this, because he’s stayed with us twice in the past when traveling across the midwest.

She also didn’t dream that she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. However, this is the issue that we faced shortly after my daughter was born. My wife simply was not producing enough breastmilk, and the quality of the breastmilk wasn’t enough to adequately nourish our daughter. We signed up for WIC because we had to, we needed to supplement with formula, and our incomes didn’t leave us with enough money to pay for it, and nobody was volunteering to help pay for it either. If we could have borrowed the money, if I could have even begged somebody for the money to do so, we most certainly would have, but nobody we knew had the money either, and there wern’t any philanthropists with signs out stating they wanted to help families who were down on their luck.

So, we accepted WIC. We accepted food stamps. Eventually, we were able to remove ourselves from the program because we both found better employment that paid a sufficient wage. Without that subsidy, however, who is to say whether or not we would have made it that far. Even with that help, some days we were scraping coins from the street to come up with enough money to buy a pack of ramen noodles or a gallon of milk. But, certainly, because we had access to such subsidy, we were able to move to a better situation in life.

I can complain about a lot of things where my taxpayer dollars go these days, but I do not complain about them going to help other people in my position. We are very thankful and grateful for the assitance we got. I don’t know how I can repay that back, other than sharing what resources we have today with those who do not have the same. I’ve learned to become a very generous person because of this. If a friend or a neighbor needs money, needs food, needs a ride from one place to another, then I share it if I have it to share. I’ve even had my generosity taken advantage of in the past, and it doesn’t discourage me from doing it again. What else can I do?

I know a lot of people here talk about the idea that if we eliminated these government programs, the private and religious sector would pick up the slack. I don’t believe that this is the case. Private and religous organizations are already busting at the seems with more people in need than resources available to help them. Freeing this taxpayer money, even reducing their taxes, would not suddenly see an influx of funds into these other organizations. Those who can donate to such organizations do so because they have the financial resources to do so, and they’re already donating as much as they feel responsible for donating.

So, that part out of the way – the idea of nurses, doctors, and government employees pushing the idea that formula is better than breastfeeding. I do not doubt that it happens, mis-education is in a lot of places, even in programs that should be educating new mothers properly. I can only state that in my case, we was very satisifed with the amount and quality of information that we received from employees who were responsible for making sure that we had the information. In one state where we received WIC, the employees treated me with a lot of respect and could see that we were intelligent parents, they asked us what we knew and then supplemented our knowledge with information that helped us. In another state, we were treated like we were dumbasses and they drowned us in paperwork and pamphlets that were intended to educate us, but the information that we were provided was very thorough, correct, and was easy to understand. In both cases, breastfeeding was ALWAYS encouraged, even in the case of my wife where she was producing very little milk, she was encouraged to continue breastfeeding and not give up until her milk ducts stopped producing milk completely.

Reading the study posted here, I have no dispute of the author’s findings that WIC could do more to promote breastfeeding and could do more to drive down the dependency on formula. I also do not have any dispute with the idea that the formula manufacturers are acting in ways which benefit themselves more than it does the consumer of their products, especially with the free giveaway of formula at the expense of taxpayer money and the simultaneous artifical increase in prices for formula.

However, I do have an issue with the author’s apparent and aggressive assumption that EVERY mother is able to breastfeed, and that every mother’s breast milk is superior to formula in every way, and that every mother is able to breastfeed for the 2+ years that the WHO suggests mothers provide. The clear stance here is that breastmilk vs. formula is an either-or proposition, either mothers are exclusively breastfeeding, or they’re exclusively providing formula.

In my experience, this is rarely the case. More often than not it is breastfeeding with the additional supplement of formula when needed. It doesn’t appear to me that the author took into consideration that many mothers are not able to provide enough breastmilk to adequately provide nutrition for their child, even when they are on a proper, healthy and nutritious diet. It doesn’t appear to me that the author took into consideration external factors such as working mothers who are not able to breastfeed around the clock, or the inability to properly store breastmilk for later consumpion, or mothers who have a psychological adversion to breastfeeding.

And while many states have moved to try to ensure that mothers have complete freedom to breastfeed in public, there is certainly a lot of uneducated individuals who act against this, which certainly discourages the practice, and even if a breastfeeding mother were aware that such laws were available to protect her and her children, when it comes to women on WIC, how many of them could afford the legal counsel to protect their rights? This portion is going to be a long term battle between individuals who see breastfeeding as natural and a right that needs protection against individuals who have also been trained by our governments to treat breastfeeding as a form of nudity and obscenity that should never be seen in public, much like having to use the bathroom or possibly a form of exhibitionism.

Hopefully, the amount of time I’ve spent writing this will help to soften the hearts of readers like Rich Paul and David who make the assumption that everybody, or even most, people who are receiving WIC assistance are “breeders” who simply choose to have children that they cannot support. And may God help them if they ever find themselves in such desperate situation, because I’d certainly hope that they would choose to accept whatever assistance they could rather than abstain from government assistance and put their children at risk.

Next time ANYONE offers you a free anything, financial aide for college or anything else, please be sure to say “no thanks” cause that’s those are also Fed funded programs!

I’m not disputing the benefits of breastfeeding. Especially the nutrition and antibodies. I am in fact very much for it. And yes, adopted children can be breastfed, IF the adoptive mother can induce lactation. There are certainly reasons other than HIV for women to be unable to breastfeed. Many can be fixed or worked around, like inverted nipples. Some cannot, like medications the mother must take, or the very rare woman who doesn’t produce enough milk. Cleft palates can make it difficult to impossible for the child to deal with the shape of the nipple, and bottles are just easier for him/her to use (granted, that mother can express milk).

I can give you several real life examples, if you like. As I mentioned, after my sister was born, complications forced my own mother to take medications for quite some time that, had she breastfed, would have greatly harmed my sister. I know a woman who had surgery after childbirth, and due to the toxins released by her bad gall bladder and the drugs she was on after surgery, couldn’t breastfeed for 6 weeks. She pumped to keep her milk flow, and resumed when she was able, but her daughter had trouble getting used to it again. I know a woman with lupus, who had to be put on a new anti-seizure med after the birth of her son, and had he breastfed, that drug could have killed him. I know many, many low-income women who, rather than risk their jobs (their employers don’t offer many breaks for pumping), have their caregivers feed their babies formula while they’re working and breastfeed while they’re at home. After all, better they can feed their families and themselves then quit their jobs, malnourish themselves, and not be able to breastfeed adequately anyway. (And just a note, breastmilk is NOT always the right temperature when it’s refrigerated/frozen, and there ARE bottles, etc…)

I’m very much a believer that if at all possible, a baby should be breastfed, and as often as possible (supplementing with formula if you must, but sticking to breastmilk when at all feasible). But it’s not always best for both the baby and the mother. Most often, yes. But not always.

I do agree that education is a problem. A generation or so ago, women were told that formula was better. (I believe sterilization was the reasoning, though it was very wrong.) So women have well-meaning relatives giving them bad information, as well as older, less up-to-date doctors.

However, I can’t blame WIC for this. I’ve never seen them try to push a mother one way or the other – but every poster, every piece of literature I’ve ever seen from them was on the benefits of breastfeeding for both the mother and child.