WIC

Week two started the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC)  rotation. This is a community nutrition rotation.

I learned about the WIC system and food packages. WIC provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk. (http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/)

I watched how the WIC clinic accepts new clients and also watched how the checks are given. There were many projects given during this rotation. My first project: Make a table of the 34 infant formulas you can get from WIC (only 4 are contract, the other 30 you need a doctor's note for) and compare them to breast milk. My assignment was 8 pages in length, comparing carbohydrate source, protein source, fat source, other added nutrients, fiber, osmolarity, calories and use for every formula.

The next project to do was to make 10 short easy recipes, and two lesson plans with handouts to go with it.

While at WIC, I was able to sit in with the nutritionists and listen to their nutrition education. It was kind of cool to see what was going on and how to interact with clients. I really enjoyed this part of this rotation.

Friday we attended a Health Fair in another county, representing WIC.

WIC taught me how to communication with a client.

The second week at WIC was pretty good, Monday I went to the other Leon County WIC office and observed the LD (Licensed Dietitian) at their office. The RD/LD's are the only persons at WIC who can see the high risk clients and the medical issue clients.

I attended the breastfeeding classes. It was interesting and I actually enjoyed listening to mother's talk about their future concerns and breastfeeding mothers talked about their past problems and how they over came them. I'm completely pro-breastfeeding (not that I wasn't before WIC). I learned such valuable information at WIC about breastfeeding . I feel that WIC does a GREAT job supporting breastfeeding with their breastfeeding support group class.

The second week I was able to counsel my own WIC clients. I did two that afternoon with a different RD. It went well for the most part.  I easily met the goal of  counseling 10 clients. Everything turned out really good for this rotation and our evaluations. The Dietitians gave great advice to me. WIC was a great experience.