I work for an organization that really promotes breastfeeding. But not every woman can.
That’s true, and of course, I have all sympathies for these kinds of problems, since I have them myself. But I think that RedheadDragynLady makes a really good point. I’m the ONLY mom of an infant at my daycare who has made any effort at all to pump rather than use formula exclusively. One mom (and she’s not one of the WIC recipents) rolled her eyes and laughed at me when I said that I was still trying to breastfeed, like I was crazy for putting forth the effort. I think programs like WIC sometimes tend to try to take the easiest road to helping people…it’s easier to throw formula at them than give them a breastpump, teach them how to use it, do followups to be sure she’s not having trouble, help her with roadblocks she finds at her workplace, etc. etc.
I’m sorry things are tough for you right now, and I hope they get better soon (they will!). I also had breastfeeding problems, so I know how painful that is. It made me feel like a total failure as a mother. I hope you understand why people get defensive really quickly when it comes to this subject. Yes, there are people who abuse the system, but most of us are struggling big time, and already feel really ashamed for having to make this choice. When people come on and say things like, “Why work and plan when you can just get free stuff?” It hurts, it really does. The idea that being poor is fun, or easy, is just so far from the reality of the situation… It’s painful and depressing every day, and you read something like this and it feels like someone just walked by and kicked you while you were crawling along, just trying to survive. I know you didn’t mean it like this; when you’re having a hard time it’s easy to get frustrated at the things around you that just seem so unfair.
It tough for everyone. Being a parent is hard. It’s hard when you’re really broke, but it’s hard when you aren’t. Maybe we could all try harder to give each other a break. Most of us are doing the best we know how.
Are you doing anything to try and get yourself out of the situation? I ask because I grew up with a mother that had us on welfare. A mother that didn’t want to hold a job for very long. I hated food stamps and medicaid. My sister and I made damn sure that we would NOT ever have to be dependent on the govt. if we could help it.
We both put ourselves through college (no grants) and have good careers now. My mother? She’s now on SSI and we are supplementing that. She had me at 17 yrs. old and she never really tried to do anything with her life. WIC may be a great program and it can definitely help but it can also set up a circle of dependence.
If anyone is on any type of assistance, please try and make it temporary. I don’t say this meaning it to be judgemental, I’m speaking from experience. I know not everyone is going to be like my mother though.
Breastfeeding saved us for a while. We actually got to eat meat! But then the boy didn’t ‘thrive’ and I was told to use the WIC for formula so that his intake could be monitored.
Let me re-state-- WIC vouchers did not give enough formula to keep my two fed. And my two were tiny. I wondered how the women who had only WIC did it. Upthread I see AHunter had the answer. Water it down.
Oh, I forgot about the “W” part of WIC. I, personally, never got anything for me while on WIC. I dunno how they work out who gets what but our $14,000 a year for the 4 of us was too much for me to get beans, rice and cheese-- even though I was breastfeeding.
Yes, one of our major focuses (focii?), is breast-feeding. We refused some coin canisters in the shape of bottles recently because it’s against everything we push. That’s just a tiny example. I work for the March of Dimes, by the way.
Caring for your baby
Breastfeeding
I don’t really know how we got away from breast-feeding as the best way to feed the baby. I gather it was something to do with doctors in the 60’s and 70’s, and formula being touted as all that and a bag of potato chips. It’s a tough sell sometimes because of all the misconceptions. It’s also frustrating because women who can’t and who believe it’s the right thing feel like failures because they can’t.
(Please note I am not a mother, simply stating my experiences with mothers.)
WIC is, by nature, temporary. Not only that, but you do know that the Clinton Administration did a very large Welfare Reform. You can only collect it for 5 years now. That’s 5 years for your whole life. So don’t get pregnant at 15, use it until your kid is school age and then get pregnant again. Not gonna work.
Of course not. But “My job won’t let me have the time to pump” or “I’m afraid of being attacked in public” should not be on the list of reasons a mother stops breastfeeding.
Only a very small minority of women can’t breastfeed for medical reasons. And yet, our country, one of the most technologically advanced, educated nations in the world, has one of the worst breastfeeding rates.
It doesn’t take support to fix a bottle or hand the baby off to daddy to feed. But it DOES take support, education, and HELP to learn to breastfeed properly, learn what the true signs of problem are (the vast majority of women who self-diagnose with “low supply” don’t have that problem), learn how to fix the problems, and deal with the harsh demands an exclusively nursing infant comes with.
And that starts with every family. Whether you choose to breastfeed or not.
THIS IS SO TRUE!!
At the pick up point I went to, there were posters on the wall that said “We support breastfeeding mothers!” and I swear to you, that was the entire program. Like i said, I had an awful time trying to breastfeed my first child (my second was a lot easier, but I was off of WIC by then). I had to meet with a nutritionist as part of the requirements for being on WIC, and when I told her how I was trying to breastfeed, but I was having problems, she really pushed the formula angle. She said it was supplementing, but we know how that goes. They didn’t have any kind of support system in place; certainly no pumps or anything like that. I finally gave up with him, but it bothered me for a long time (I guess it still does). I wish there was more support for breastfeeding within this system, but they just want to streamline everything. There’s no time for people’s individual problems, working with a counselor, anything like that. It’s a shame, it really is.
No, I’m not. I like living in a house that’s falling down around my ears. It’s fun, dontcha know!
Did you miss the part about having “incomed out” of the food stamps program? That means we make too much money for it.
Explain to me why it is that every time someone mentions getting federal assistance for something, the first thing anyone does is start crowing about “making your situation better”.
I guess that doesn’t include my husband working himself to the bone to improve our situation, or me being a full time college student.
Silly me.
By the way, WIC isn’t going to create a circle of dependence. The formula benefits cut off at a year, breastfeeding benefits at the same time, and after that, it’s milk. Sorry, but four gallons of milk a month isn’t going to create any kind of “dependence”.
People seem to not understand the WIC checks. The check is filled out for the amount after the allowed items are picked up. Please read the following link.
How to use WIC checks in the grocery store.
- Separate your WIC foods from any other items you are buying.
2. Tell the cashier that you will be paying with a WIC check.
3. The cashier will ring up all your items and verify that your WIC items are the correct sizes and brands.
4. The cashier will then total the amount of your WIC items and write the amount on the check.
5. The cashier will verify your signature on your WIC ID card.
Look at the restrictions on the food list in the next link.
WIC food list.
Here is a brief qualification.
Who is WIC for?
Here is a link to the main page for the people with more questions.
WIC index page.
Sarahfeena you won’t be taking the food from some other baby if you qualify. Look at the “Who is WIC for?” link I posted. The site I linked is for Massachusetts, because they explained the program nicely. You will need to look at your state’s program and don’t be hesitant to call Health and Human Services to ask for details.
I agree with you! And a disgustingly high rate of prematurity and birth defects. I mean we are like #26 in the world on healthy babies. One of the richest countries in the world!
We are seriously screwed up with our priorities here I think sometimes. However it’s hard to find an alternative. Women have only a piddling amount of maternity leave, yet how to remedy this? Fathers - well, in a very few companies I have heard of unpaid paternity leave. How many people can afford to do that? Companies won’t do anything that’s not good for the bottom line unless their hand is forced.
I think we really have it all backwards when it comes to having babies. I’m not saying one’s whole life should be centered around it but I think it really got pushed to a sort of second-class citizen type of thing. And I’m childless and I’m saying this!
Really? Because my mother has been on welfare for hmmm lets see, on and off over TWENTY FIVE years! Oh yes. :eek:
Just in the last 2 months she switched to SSI. Welfare reform or not she was way over the 5 year limit. My little sister just turned 18 this past year and I know my was on her entire life.
It’s on the voucher that Social Services prints out for them, and that they bring up to the cashier. It will say, quite specifically, something like, "
They can get ONLY what’s on the voucher. Period. If it says “powder”, they must get powder. If it says “concentrate”, then that’s what they go home with.
And I would like to say that in over a year of ringing up WIC at Walgreens in a low-income neighborhood, I have never seen one presented for RTF. It’s all powder or concentrate. Maybe that’s just a Macon County thing.
Now, they can buy RTF on their food stamps, but that’s a different program.
It’s a federal program, so I would assume that the differences from state to state would be superficial.
This is how it works: they get a voucher from the Social Services offices. It looks superficially like an oversized check, but is not a “check” and is not worth any money. It’s a “voucher”. But it’s universally referred to as a “WIC check”, which is where the “money” reference comes in.
And it specifies exactly what they can get for this 4-weeks worth of food. Options are indeed very limited. If you should prefer a different brand of formula, or RTF instead of powder, according to my instructions from WIC via Walgreens Corporate in Springfield, you cannot get it, even if you have the money to pay for it. If you want a different kind of formula, you have to talk to your caseworker and explain why you need RTF specified on your WIC. “Only what’s on the voucher!” has been hammered into my head so many times, from so many memos taped to my checkout counter by my memo-loving Management :rolleyes:…
Now, it’s possible that some states, or some counties, or some retail grocery vendors, allow women to buy other kinds of formula using their WIC by making up the difference themselves. But here in Illinois, at Walgreens, they can’t.
As for “drop spots”, there are specific locations other than retail grocery establishments set up where you can “pick up your WIC”. (And it’s worthwhile to note that not all retail grocery establishments “take WIC”, i.e. are registered WIC vendors.) The drop spots have slightly different inventory, is my understanding; you can get some food items only at the drop spots.
From what I have read here, it apparently works differently in different places.
Thanks, I appreciate your concern & help, but I really don’t need it. 
The way the program is administered really varies a lot from state to state though. A common theme seems to be that you don’t actually get to choose what you receive; if they tell you to get RTF formula, that’s what you get. You can’t buy powdered and have money left for other things. With food stamps it’s a bit different (I think; I never used them, so I can’t be sure) but WIC is not the same as food stamps. If every WIC mother at Sarahfeena’s daycare uses RTF, I have a strong hunch that’s what’s happening here.
In other words, its not mothers making bad decisions, it’s the state. But the formula companies may also have the state’s hands tied. I say we blame the formula companies, since they are shady anyway, and they always pissed me off!
I love when guests jump on and start off being total assholes. I know it’s the Pit but damn. I never even posted in the Pit as a guest but I digress.
I didn’t exactly “crow” about “making your situation better” , I just shared a bit about my own experience, excuse the fuck out of me.
also I didn’t say that WIC WOULD create dependence, just that it might. That it quite possibly started it for my mother.
You need to stop being so fucking defensive. Silly you is right. :rolleyes:
Some of the US’s high rate of birth defects is caused by the US’s relatively low abortion rate. Babies get born in the US who would not get born in some other countries. Some would consider that plus, and some a minus.
As for the convenience issue of this thread, sometimes convenience is the only thing separating what does get done from what doesn’t. Since “what doesn’t” in this case would be “the child getting fed” I have no issue with making it more convenient. The world needs healthy babies way more than I need a dollar.
No offense taken here. Have you thought about feeding the Li’l Dude cereal? My son was an eating machine and not sleeping, too. Once I gave him a “cereal ba” he was able to sleep better and was less cranky. He was starving!!!
Er…no comment on that one. 
I only posted to say that the March of Dimes is decidedly neutral on the stance of abortion.