A Boost to Babies : Program to Help Feed Needy Mothers and Infants Keeps Growing

By LESLIE BERKMAN

July 30, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

BUENA PARK —

A highly successful federal program that provides vitamin-rich food to needy mothers and babies has more than tripled in size in Orange County in the past five years and is projected to continue growing at breakneck speed.

An infusion of new money into the local Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Supplemental Food Program is beginning to compensate for years of low funding that state officials say has made Orange County one of the most neglected WIC regions in the country.

The program serves pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers and babies at risk for health problems caused by poor nutrition. And beginning this month, the local program also includes toddlers up to 3 years old.

Most new clients still are referred to WIC by doctors, but organizers have launched a community outreach effort, placing flyers in coin-operated laundries and at community centers, said Michelle Van Eiken, the local WIC coordinator.

A key goal is to reach beyond the welfare population to working, low-income families who may not realize that they meet WIC’s income eligibility criteria, which, for instance, include a family of four earning up to $27,000 a year.

“We are having discussions with the Marines at El Toro because many people in the military meet our income guidelines,” Van Eiken said.

A year ago, prospective clients had to wait up to four months for their first appointment. They can now be scheduled within a week because of increased staffing and longer office hours, Van Eiken said.

“We are growing very rapidly and Orange County is one of the most dramatic examples of the rapid growth of the WIC program we have got in the state,” said Phyllis Bramson, chief of the WIC program for the state Department of Health Services.

Bramson considers it money well spent. She cited a U.S. General Accounting Office review that concluded that “every dollar spent on WIC services saved the taxpayer about $3 on medical care in an infant’s first year of life . . . and that was not even looking at long term benefits of nutrition such as on IQ and school performance.”

Orange County’s WIC program, which is run by the county Health Care Agency, will have an annual operating budget of $4.3 million starting in October. That will serve a 45,500-person caseload at 10 locations scattered from Buena Park to San Juan Capistrano.

Participants receive an average of $30 in vouchers each month that can be redeemed at grocery stores for specific items such as iron-fortified baby formula, milk, cheese and fruit juice.

The women who enroll in WIC, many of them teen-agers having their first babies, also get instruction in nutrition, such as information about when to start children on solid foods and tips on how to prepare healthy baby food from scratch that is less expensive than the ready-made kind.

A typical client is 22-year-old Rachel Youngman of Cypress. Youngman was referred to the program by her 10-month-old son’s pediatrician, who was distressed to learn that the child often woke up in the night, apparently crying with hunger.

Youngman would quiet the boy by giving him a bottle of water, she said in an interview. Youngman, who is unemployed and pregnant, said the previous month she had stopped buying baby formula because she could no longer afford it on her $490-a-month welfare check.

Last week, Youngman made her first visit to a Buena Park clinic where she was enrolled in the WIC program.

Also at the clinic was 18-year-old Nicole Smith of Anaheim, who was there to get food vouchers for herself and her two daughters, one a newborn and the other 18 months old.

Smith was originally referred to WIC in 1992 when she was pregnant with her first child, Kionna.

“The doctor said I was not getting enough iron or calcium in my diet,” said Smith, who works for minimum wage at a fast-food restaurant. She said she could not afford vitamins and had cut dietary corners as a way to stretch her pay.

With help from the WIC program, Smith said, she ate well during her second pregnancy and has been able to get high-protein food, such as eggs and beans, for 18-month-old Kionna, who is small for her age.

Like others in the WIC program, Smith and her daughters must regularly be examined by private physicians, who fill out health assessment forms that are reviewed by WIC nutritionists.

Dr. Gerald Wagner, Orange County’s maternal and child health director who set up the county’s WIC program in 1975, credits it for sharply reducing the cases of iron deficiency in children seen at the county’s well-baby clinics. So convinced are the Clinton Administration and Congress about WIC’s value in preventing premature births and birth defects that in the past few years federal funding for the program has expanded from $2.9 billion in the 1993 fiscal year to $3.2 billion in 1994.

In years past, WIC programs in California and other western states with burgeoning populations of poor immigrants were chronically underfunded, Bramson said. The reason: Allocations were tied to census counts for more than a decade.

For many of the same reasons, she said, Orange County got less than its fair share of funding. Currently Orange County remains the most underserved WIC region in California, state officials said.

However, funding has increased for the county, program officials said, as new census figures have become available and federal and state officials changed allocation policies to make up for deficiencies.

To cope with a lean budget in years past, Orange County’s WIC officials said they have restricted program admissions to the highest priority cases, concentrating on serving pregnant and breast-feeding women and infants up to a year in age, and refusing to accept any children older than 18 months. By contrast, WIC programs in better funded parts of the country serve children up to age 5.

Nonetheless, the WIC program operated by the county Health Care Agency has in the past five years more than tripled in size, expanding from 13,400 clients in 1989 to 43,000 at present, with room for more than 2,000 additional people.

The state Department of Health Services wants the aggressive growth of the county’s WIC program to continue, projecting a caseload of 100,000 women and children by 1996, said Len Foster, Orange County deputy director of public health.

In recent months, Orange County officials have been struggling to make use of all of a sudden bonus of federal money that the state Department of Health Services has showered on them.

Since October, the county has accepted $866,000 in additional funding to serve 10,000 more clients but has declined about $900,000 that would have allowed yet another 13,100 women and children to be served.

The reason, Foster said, is that the county Health Care Agency doesn’t have enough offices and distribution centers to handle such a vastly expanded caseload. But he said he is negotiating for more facilities and within 30 to 45 days he expects to open three more WIC voucher distribution sites.

Bramson, while commending the work of the county Health Care Agency, said the state hopes by January to add a second local WIC contractor.

Where to Enter WIC Program

There are 10 WIC sites in the county. To schedule an admission appointment, call (714) 834-8333.

PROGRAM OFFICES

* Jeffrey Lynne Center, 1633 S. Jeffrey Drive, Anaheim

* Ponderosa Park, 2100 S. Haster St., Anaheim

* Social Services Agency/Anaheim, 11170 Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim

* WIC Anaheim, 2037 E. Ball Road, Anaheim

* Health Care Agency/Buena Park, 7342 Orangethorpe Ave., Buena Park

* Health Care Agency/Costa Mesa, 2845 E. Mesa Verde Drive, Costa Mesa

* Health Care Agency/San Juan Capistrano, 27512 Calle Arroyo, San Juan Capistrano

* Corbin Community Center, 2215 W. McFadden Ave., Santa Ana