New Fresno mother describes how WIC program gives her baby the healthy start she needs | Opinion
A few months ago, my baby daughter started the transition from exclusively breastfeeding to beginning to eat solid foods. Like many other parents, I am experiencing the range of emotions — excitement, wonder, curiosity — that comes with a child reaching this milestone.
But I am also feeling fear.
Breastfeeding takes a lot of time and effort, but one of its many benefits is that the product itself is free. Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are expensive — and with food prices still running high thanks to inflation, they can be out of reach for parents like me in the San Joaquin Valley with limited income. The idea of being unable to afford the healthy foods my daughter and I need is a scary but very real thought for me.
Fortunately, we have a lifeline: the supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, otherwise known as WIC. For nearly 50 years, WIC has provided millions of pregnant women, new moms and young children with essential health and nutrition benefits. But a lack of funding means that some women and families who need WIC may not be able to get it — especially whenever there’s a government shutdown.. My message to Congress is simple: Make sure WIC is always there for anyone who needs it.
I joined WIC when I was two months pregnant. As any parent can attest, life changes dramatically when you become pregnant, and even more so when your first child is born. But WIC has been a constant for me since the day I joined.
At the time, I wasn’t a healthy eater, and I wasn’t sure what steps I needed to take to make sure I had a healthy pregnancy. WIC counselors always answer my questions and point me in the right direction. As my daughter achieves all the different milestones that come during a child’s critically important first year of life, I consider WIC counselors to be an important part of our team.
My daughter and I are among the more than 900,000 residents of California who participate in WIC; in fact, WIC serves more than 40% of all babies born in our state. The average family income for California WIC participants is less than $20,000, so we need the support — it’s especially important here in Fresno County, where 14% of residents are food insecure. But our state depends on it, too: WIC’s total economic impact in California was more than $1 billion in 2022 alone.
In addition to its remarkable economic impacts, WIC drives significant health impacts as well. WIC lowers the risk of infant mortality, reduces poverty and food insecurity, and strengthens brain development of children. Obesity rates for 2-to-4 year olds on WIC in California declined from 18.4% in 2010 to 17% in 2020. By any objective measure, WIC is simply incredible.
Yet as they debate the federal budget, some members of Congress are threatening to underfund the program by hundreds of millions of dollars. If WIC isn’t fully funded, state WIC agencies may be forced to put otherwise eligible individuals or families on wait lists, which hasn’t happened in decades. Without WIC, it would be even harder for California families in need to handle the rent increases and heating payments that are coming this winter, and the high food and gas prices we’re dealing with daily.
There are many ways to make WIC even stronger than it is now. Congress can increase funding for WIC and maintain the higher fruit and vegetable benefit that so many of us have relied on over the past few years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture can make the food package even healthier and make it easier for people to spend benefits online. But cutting benefits would be a huge mistake. No mother or child will benefit from failing to fund WIC, but many will be hurt.
My daughter will reach many more milestones in the coming months and years: walking, talking, eating new foods and going to school. It’s my job to keep her healthy and safe as she grows up, but it’s a job I can’t do alone. I need WIC; millions of other families do, too. And that means we need Congress to step up and protect a program that does so much for so many in Fresno, throughout California and across our country.
Janet Ortigoza is a Fresno resident who participates in WIC.
