United States: New research shows that pregnant women who get help from the WIC food aid program have better health than those who struggle to get enough food.
As reported by HealthDay, the WIC program, or the United States’ important Supplemental Nutrition Program which is specially for Women, Infants, and Children, provides nutritious food and support to low-income women who are pregnant, have recently had a baby, or are breastfeeding, as well as their young children.
What is the WIC Program?
The program also helps these families find health care and other important services, though there are almost more than 1 in the 10 families in the United States actually do not have enough healthy food to eat and which is known as food insecurity.
The WIC program works to solve this problem by giving families the food and help they need to stay healthy. This research shows that WIC really makes a difference in getting the health and health issues of pregnant women and their children.

The new study, from the team Ohio State University found out that women who are enrolled in WIC had a lower risk of poor pregnancy outcomes and those outcomes included gestational diabetes, blood transfusion, preterm birth and stays in intensive care for mom and baby alike.
This particular study dovetails with concerns about the Congressional proposals to slash WIC funding for the first time.
Research Shows WIC’s Positive Impact
“Food insecurity is a major issue in the U.S. with food prices up,” said lead researcher Dr. Kartik Venkatesh who is the initiator of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. “In an era in which WIC enrollment has gone down, data from our study prove the relationship between WIC and improved pregnancy health.”
Concerns About WIC Funding Cuts
For this particular study, his team analysed the nationwide enrollment in WIC of 18-—to 44-year-olds who were pregnant for the very first time between 2016 and 2019, as well as their babies. This is only for those who were living in the U.S. and covered by Medicaid provided by the government, the government health insurance program for low-income Americans, were included.
Next Steps for Improving WIC Services
In all, data for 1.9 million people in almost 3,120 U.S. counties were analyzed.
The analysis found that WIC enrollment fell from nearly 73 per 100 live births in 2016 to 66 per 100 in 2019. Still, in the counties where WIC enrollment rose, there was an average 50 percent drop in the ICU admission for the parent and 30 percent drops in both gestational diabetes and blood transfusions at the birth and among the cute little babies in those counties, preterm births were nearly 30 percent lower. There were 20 percent fewer ICU admissions.
“This study shows that programs like WIC work,” study co-author Dr. William Grobman, a maternal fatal medicine specialist, said in an university news release.
Next step, Venkatesh said, is to see what OSU can do to connect people with food insecurity to WIC and other social services.