- Services Provided
Services Provided
Nutritious Foods
Participants receive an eWIC card to buy specific nutritious foods at grocery stores. WIC food packages are issued to participants based on their nutritional needs. WIC supplements participant’s diets with these nutritious foods:- Milk
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Cereal
- Juice
- Dried or canned beans
- Peanut butter
- Whole grain bread, tortillas or brown rice
- Fruits and vegetables
- Tofu
- Yogurt
WIC encourages women to breastfeed as the most nutritious way to feed their babies. Mothers who fully breastfeed their babies are issued a larger food package that includes canned light tuna, pink salmon, or sardines. Totally breastfed babies will receive infant cereal and jars of baby food fruits, vegetables, and meats at six months of age.
Infants who are not breastfed receive supplemental amounts of iron-fortified formula, and beginning at six months of age, they will receive infant cereal and jars of baby food fruits and vegetables.
Nutrition Education
Good nutrition is essential to good health, and the Indiana WIC Program offers a range of health and nutrition education services for families to help participants put healthy behaviors into action. Nutrition education is provided in Indiana through various methods, including one-on-one contacts, group classes, and online nutrition education lessons. These services are customized to each family's needs and interests and include:
- Infant feeding
- Breastfeeding
- Prenatal Weight Gain
- Postpartum Weight Loss
- Picky Eaters
- Anemia
Breastfeeding Education and Support
We have the resources to help you meet your breastfeeding goals. All WIC services are free and available to all parents and babies in the WIC program. These services include:
- The largest food package! Exclusively breastfeeding parents receive the largest food package. We feed parents to feed their babies.
- Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) who can provide individualized clinical breastfeeding support.
- Breastfeeding Peer Counselors (some areas have bilingual and multilingual Peer Counselors)
- Breastfeeding assessments, weight checks, and infant feeding classes.
- Assessment of breast pump needs and personalized flange fittings. Breastfeeding aids and accessories are available as needed.
- Evidence-based breastfeeding education and resources.
Referrals
A specific function of the Indiana WIC certification process is to make referrals for Medicaid and other social service programs. Although the Indiana WIC Program does not provide health care, Indiana WIC will refer all applicants to health care providers as appropriate. Some of the referrals include:- Medicaid
- TANF
- SNAP
- Maternal and Child Health Programs
- Expanded Food and Nutrition Program offered by Cooperative Extension Services
- Hoosier Healthwise
- Healthy Families
- County Health Departments for Immunizations
- Child Support Enforcement
- Local Drug Treatment Centers
- Health Care Provider Offices including Private Offices and Community Health Centers
- Local Food Pantries and Shelters
Resources
- Approved Foods and Formula
- INWIC App
Download the INWIC App Today
INWIC App Quick Reference Guide
Search "IN WIC" or "Indiana WIC" at the App Store or Google Play. With the app, WIC participants can:
- Check their benefit balance
- Scan UPC Codes while shopping to see if the item is WIC-approved
- Get alerts for appointment reminders and expiring benefits
- Find WIC-approved stores and the nearest WIC clinic
- Other Resources
Other Web Sites and Information Links
- Be Food Safe
- FDA's Advice About Eating Fish
- Fish - Online Seafood Watch Guide - All Regions
- Filing a Discrimination Complaint
- Indiana's Food for the Hungry
- IDOH Lead Prevention
- USDA WIC Program
- USDA Choose MyPlate
- Indiana 211
- ASPHN Clean Away COVID
- Pregnancy Promise Program
- CDC's Development Milestones
- FSSA: First Steps: Home
- FSSA: Carefinder: Head Start and Early Head Start
WIC Supports Breastfeeding
We have the resources to help you meet your breastfeeding goals. All WIC services are free and available to any mother/baby in the WIC program. These services include:
- Exclusively breastfeeding moms receive the largest food package. We feed moms to feed their babies.
- Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC) and Peer Counselors (some areas have Spanish & Burmese speaking Peer Counselors).
- Breastfeeding assessment, weight checks and breastfeeding classes.
- Assessment of breast pump needs and personalized pump/flange fitting. Breastfeeding accessories are available as needed.
- Evidence-based breastfeeding education and resources.
Breastfeeding Laws in Indiana
Public Law: “Notwithstanding any other law, a woman may breastfeed her child anywhere the woman has the right to be.”
Source: IC 16-35-6-1
Workplace Pumping Laws: “Indiana codes §5-10-6-2 and §22-2-14-2 (2008) provide that state and political subdivisions shall provide for reasonable paid breaks for an employee to express breast milk for her infant, make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location, other than a toilet stall, where the employee can express breast milk in private and make reasonable efforts to provide for a refrigerator to keep breast milk that has been expressed. The law also provides that employers with more than 25 employees must provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee’s breast milk in private and if possible to provide a refrigerator for storing breast milk that has been expressed.”
For more information or to file a complaint,
Call 1-866-4US-WAGE
Peer Counselor Program
A WIC Peer Counselor is a WIC mother that supports other WIC clients with breastfeeding. WIC peer counselors have valuable experience breastfeeding their own babies and they know what it’s like being a new parent. They are here to support and encourage other WIC clients to meet their breastfeeding goals.
All Indiana WIC clinics have a Peer Counselor who can support you through your breastfeeding journey, answer questions you may have, and provide guidance when you have concerns. Peer Counselors can also provide referrals to lactation consultants who can provide even more support.
If you would like to get in contact with your Peer Counselor, you can locate your Local Clinic by county here. They are available in the WIC clinics, over the phone, or by text.
Breast Pump Cleaning
Keeping your breast pump clean is crucial to keeping your baby safe. Select your pump type below to learn how to keep your pump clean.
WIC Breastfeeding Awards
USDA established the WIC Loving Support Award of Excellence in 2014 to recognize local WIC agencies that have provided exemplary breastfeeding promotion and support activities. The intent is to provide best practice models and motivate other local agencies to strengthen their breastfeeding promotion and support activities and ultimately increase breastfeeding initiation, exclusivity, and duration rates among WIC clients. The award is given at three levels of performance that build on one another: Gold, Gold Premiere, and Gold Elite.
This approach recognizes three groups of WIC agencies that include those that are demonstrating model practices, as well as those who are at varying stages of implementing exemplary breastfeeding promotion and support practices. To receive the Gold Award, local WIC agencies must complete an application that evaluates the policies and procedures surrounding breastfeeding promotion and support, the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor program, and partnerships with local hospitals and other organizations working toward similar breastfeeding goals. The Gold Premiere and Gold Elite Awards require an additional application to be completed, and local agencies must also have a fully Breastfeeding category of at least 15% for two consecutive years for the Premiere Award and at least 40% for the Elite Award.
Indiana WIC local agencies have been hard at work over the past 5 years to put these best practices in place for breastfeeding promotion and support, and several agencies have been recognized for achieving these awards.
GOLD PREMIERE:
- Elkhart County (2023)
- Interlocal Community Action Program (2022)
- Johnson County (2021)
- Johnson Nichols (2022)
- St. Joseph County (2021)
- Tippecanoe County (2020, 2024)
GOLD:
- Arc of Greater Boone County (2021)
- Centerstone (2023)
- Community & Family Services (2020, 2024)
- Elkhart County (2019 Gold, 2023 Premiere)
- Good Samaritan (2024)
- Indiana Health Centers - 51 (2024)
- Interlocal Community Action Program (2019 Gold, 2022 Premiere)
- IU Health Morgan County (2020,2024)
- Johnson County (2019 Gold, 2021 Premiere)
- Johnson Nichols Health Clinic (2021 Gold, 2022 Premiere)
- Marion County (2017, 2021)
- Neighborhood Health Clinics (2018 Gold, 2020 Premiere, 2024 Gold)
- New Hope Services (2019, 2024)
- Northwest Indiana Community Action Corporation (2020, 2024)
- Open Door Health Services (2021)
- St. Joseph County (2020 Gold, 2021 Premiere)
- Tippecanoe County (2020, 2024)
- Vanderburgh County (2023)
- Western Indiana Community Action Agency (2020, 2024)
Other Breastfeeding Resources
Indiana Department of Health
The Indiana Department of Health serves to promote, protect and improve the health and safety of all Hoosiers.
Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity
The Milk Bank
The Milk Bank is on a mission to promote community health by expanding the safe use of human milk for all babies, especially premature and ill infants. The Milk Bank impacts the greater Midwest area through the safe collection and distribution of pasteurized donor human milk. The Milk Bank dispensed safe donor milk to hospitals and families across 18 states in 2022.
www.themilkbank.org
Indiana Breastfeeding Coalition
The Indiana Breastfeeding Coalition’s mission is to improve the health of all residents of Indiana by working collaboratively to promote, support, and protect breastfeeding and human milk as the optimal first food for infants in Indiana.
www.indianabreastfeeding.org
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