全球智库信息集成服务系统

Breastfeeding promotion and support is a core component of the nutrition services provided by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to low-income women and children up to 5 years of age. WIC promotes breastfeeding through state and local agency policies and practices designed to inform expectant and new mothers of the well-documented benefits of breastfeeding and, for mothers who choose to breastfeed, to provide services such as breastfeeding education and peer counseling through the infant’s first year.

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture administers the WIC Program and monitors trends in breastfeeding rates among WIC participants. As part of its ongoing efforts to increase breastfeeding exclusivity and duration, FNS contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to conduct the WIC Breastfeeding Policy Inventory (WIC BPI) Study. The study’s main objectives were to describe a census of breastfeeding policies and practices at state and local WIC agencies; the breastfeeding measures that agencies currently collect and report, and the data systems used to do so; and the correlations between breastfeeding outcomes and agencies’ policies and practices. The study also assessed the WIC BPI as an ongoing data collection tool for program monitoring and improvement. This report presents findings for each of these objectives except the analysis of correlations between breastfeeding outcomes and agencies’ policies and practices, which is described in a separate memo for FNS.

The WIC BPI was a census of 90 state, territory, and Indian Tribal Organization (ITO) WIC agencies as well as approximately 1,800 local WIC agencies. The web-based survey was conducted in two parts. Part 1, which covered policies and practices to promote breastfeeding, was fielded from February to April 2013. Part 2 covered breastfeeding measures, data systems, and reporting, and was fielded from July to October 2013. All 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, completed both parts of the survey, as did 91 percent of local agencies. Response rates were more than 80 percent for territories and ITOs.