Do pregnant women participating in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program have healthier babies? A study of the nationwide spread of WIC since 1974 finds that pre-natal WIC nutritional assistance is associated with a significant increase in babies birth weight-important in its own right and as a predictor of later health. The grad-ual introduction of WIC, which now numbers 8.7 million partici-pants, allowed the National Bureau of Economic Re-search to gauge the programs effects independently of underlying trends in infant health. Overall, WIC availability was linked to a statisti-cally significant average increase in birth weight of 2.7 grams. When the results were adjusted to reflect that only a portion of eligible mothers actually sign up for WIC, the average birth weight improvement jumped to 29 grams, a 10% gain. WIC provides nutritional counseling and vouchers for food and infant formula to low-income pregnant and lactating women and young childr.
