FY 2012 Breastfeeding Data Local Agency Report

Breastfeeding promotion and support is a priority in the WIC Program and is a core component of the nutrition services that the WIC Program provides to meet its mission of safeguarding the health of low-income women, infants and children. Research continues to reinforce breastfeeding as the best source of nutrition for infants as it provides numerous health, nutritional, economical and emotional benefits to both mother and infant. The WIC Program has achieved many accomplishments in promoting and supporting breastfeeding and continues to build upon these successes through its various breastfeeding efforts. Breastfeeding rates are steadily improving among WIC participants nationwide thanks to the efforts of WIC staff who provide the education and support mothers need to successfully breastfeed. This is the third year that State and local WIC agency breastfeeding performance measurements have been collected and published. This year’s report is a compilation of fiscal year (FY) 2012 breastfeeding performance measurements based on program participant data of the number of partially and fully breastfed infants for each WIC State and local agency. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (the Act), Public Law 111-296, requires The Department of Agriculture to annually compile and publish breastfeeding performance measurements.

The collection and publication of breastfeeding performance measurements is one of several provisions in the Act that strengthens the WIC Program’s emphasis on breastfeeding promotion and support and underscores the importance of exclusive, continued breastfeeding to the health of WIC participants. This reporting requirement provides an exciting opportunity to help further the efforts of WIC State and local agencies by highlighting agencies that demonstrate success in breastfeeding through high breastfeeding rates and by motivating other agencies to strengthen their breastfeeding promotion and support services with the goal of increasing their breastfeeding rates. The breastfeeding performance measurements will be used in the process to determine awardees for initiatives that recognize the exemplary performance of WIC State and local agencies in breastfeeding such as the Loving Support Awards for Excellence and the WIC Breastfeeding Performance Bonus Awards. Additionally, the collection of these data allows WIC to track breastfeeding data trends in the WIC Program.

The data indicate an overall 0.8 percentage increase in the number of total WIC infants reported as breastfed from 28.2% in FY 2011 to 29.0% in FY 2012. This increase in breastfeeding rates represents the successful efforts of WIC State and local agencies in continuing to provide quality breastfeeding services, including peer counseling, to WIC participants. Other highlights from the FY2012 WIC Breastfeeding Data Report include:

• An average of almost 2.07 million infants participated in the WIC Program nationally.
• Approximately 29% of infants were reported as breastfed nationally (12.1% were fully breastfed and 16.9 % were partially breastfed).
• The Northeast, Western and Southwest Regions’ performance measurements were above the national average with 37.4%, 36.9%, and 34.1% of infants reported as breastfed respectively.
• In the Mountain Plains and Western regions, the percentage of fully breastfed infants is higher than the percentage of partially breastfed infants.
• Western Region had the greatest percentage of infants reported as fully breastfed – 20.6%.
• The data indicate a 0.9 percentage point increase from 11.2% to 12.1% in fully breastfed.
• The percentage of partially breastfed infants remained stable.