WIC has played a pivotal role in providing nutrition assistance to people with low incomes for over 45 years, and it now serves nearly 7 million pregnant and postpartum participants, infants, and children up to age 5. The program contributes to healthier births, less food insecurity, more nutritious diets, better health care for children, and higher academic achievement for students. But this vital assistance is at risk.
WIC has played a pivotal role in providing nutrition assistance to people with low incomes for over 45 years, and it now serves over 6 million pregnant and postpartum participants, infants, and children up to age 5. The program contributes to healthier births, less food insecurity, more nutritious diets, better health care for children, and higher academic achievement for students. But this vital assistance is at risk.
But if Congress fails to fully fund WIC and instead extends the current funding level, about 2 million new and expecting parents and very young children in low-income families would be turned away from WIC by September. WIC needs more funding to ensure all expected participants will be served and receive the full science-based benefit.
A WIC funding shortfall would disproportionately harm Black and Hispanic parents because they are more likely to be eligible for and receive WIC than parents of other races or ethnicities. Waiting lists for new parents who aren’t breastfeeding would disproportionately harm Black parents, who are already at higher risk for severe pregnancy-related health conditions.
WIC provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, breastfeeding support, and health care referrals to participants, who are at nutritional risk.
WIC serves nearly 7 million low-income pregnant, postpartum, or breastfeeding individuals, infants, and young children up to their fifth birthday.
WIC participation is associated with healthier births, more nutritious diets, stronger connections to preventive health care, and improved educational prospects.
Over more than four decades of research, WIC’s effects on key measures of child health such as birth weight, infant mortality, diet quality and nutrient intake, initiation and duration of breastfeeding, cognitive development and learning, immunization, use of health services, and childhood anemia are well-documented.
WIC needs to be fully funded to ensure every eligible low-income family that wants to participate can receive the healthy food they need to thrive.