MARIANNA – The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) located inside of the local Florida Department of Health – Jackson County would like to make everyone aware that the month of August is recognized as World Breastfeeding Month with August 1-7 recognized as World Breastfeeding Week.   This year’s theme is “Breastfeeding and Work:  Let’s Make it Work!”

The health benefits of breastfeeding are well known.  These benefits include the following:  
Breast milk provides the ideal balance of nutrients for an infant’s growth and development
Breastfeeding reduces the risk of infectious and chronic diseases
Breastfeeding protects the health of mother and infant
Breastfeeding promotes mother, infant, and family bonding
Breastfeeding may reduce the risk of childhood obesity.  

Yet, even with these well known benefits, there are a number of barriers that adversely influence a woman’s decision to initiate and/or continue breastfeeding.

Our local WIC agency serves a total of ten clinic sites in five counties including Jackson, Holmes, Washington, Calhoun, and Liberty Counties. We strive to help are program participants overcome as many of these barriers as possible.  The nutrition staff in these clinics receive monthly training updates in order to use the proper policies and procedures appropriately to provide basic breastfeeding education to program participants as well as anyone in the community interested in breastfeeding information.   

We also have a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program in which moms are specifically employed to educate and encourage the prenatal and breastfeeding participants of the WIC program through contacts in the WIC clinic as well as phone follow up.  These employees are available outside of the normal 8:00 – 5:00 business hours when program participants have a question or concern regarding breastfeeding.  Our agency also has two Certified Lactation Counselors on staff to help when more in-depth counseling and education are required.

In recognition of World Breastfeeding Week, the Florida Department of Health – Jackson WIC Agency will have an educational display on the benefits of breastfeeding set up in main the lobby of the building.  We are also encouraging our breastfeeding program participants to attend the “Big Latch On” located at Healthy Families North Florida on Saturday, August 1st at 10:30 AM CST