Navajo County

The WIC Program improves the health of nutritionally at-risk women, infants and children. The results of studies prove that WIC is one of the nation’s most successful and cost-effective nutrition program. The combination of nutritious foods, which result in increased consumption of key nutrients such as iron and Vitamin C, nutrition education that stresses the relationship of proper nutrition and good health and the referrals to health and human service programs is what makes WIC a success.

WIC Results In

Improved Birth Outcomes and Savings in Health Care Costs

Studies have shown that the WIC Program plays an important role in improving birth outcomes and reducing health care costs. Reports published by USDA indicated that for every dollar spent on prenatal WIC participation for low-income women resulted in:

• Longer pregnancies
• Fewer premature births
• Savings in health care costs from $1.77 to $3.13 within the first 60 days after birth

Improved Diet

Studies have shown that WIC has a positive effect on children’s diet such as:

• higher intakes of iron, Vitamin C and other nutrients without an increase in food energy intake, indicating an increase in the nutrient density of the diet
• decline in the rates of iron deficiency anemia

Improved Infant Feeding Practices

Studies have shown that:

• WIC participants are more likely to breastfeed than those that are eligible but do not participate
• Those infants that are formula fed are more likely to receive iron-fortified infant formula which is recommended for non-breastfed infants for the first year of life

Improved Cognitive Development

Participation in the WIC Program has been shown to:

• Improve vocabulary scores of children whose mothers participated in WIC while pregnant
• Improve memory for children enrolled in WIC after the first year of life