WIC … providing food and nutrition education; dedicated staff bring services to mothers and children in rural Ohio county - Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children

Food and Nutrition, Jan, 1987 by Lawrence Rudman

WIC...Providing Food and Nutrition Education

The land is almost pastoral. Theroad switches back and forth south from Columbus, Ohio, onto narrow Route 136 and into Adams County.

The towns, with names like SugarTree Ridge, Cherry Fork, and Tranquillity, hide both the people and the statistics. The highest unemployment in the state. Lowest per capita income. Six physicians, four or five dentists for 28,000 people. Adams County, by any measure, is the poorest county in Ohio.

"This is a hard-scrub kind of area,"says Joanne Heidkamp, director of the Adams County WIC program at the Panhandle Health Center outside West Union.

"It's not like prosperity came andwent ... it just never came here," she says.

Heidkamp, a registered dietitian,was recruited by the Southern Ohio Health Services Network 3 years ago to manage the Adams County WIC program. Classified by the government as a medically underserved area, Adams County has the highest birth rate--more babies per woman--of any county in the state.

Last year, there were 300 births. Heidkampalso says the county's teen pregnancy rate is the second highest in Ohio. "Not out-of-wedlock births, either," she says, "just early marriages."

Patients' progress

noted by physicians

The one-story brick building housingthe Panhandle Health Center and the WIC clinic sits on the edge of old Panhandle Road, next to an abandoned drive-in theatre.

In the waiting room, women, someholding babies, fill out diet histories and answer questions to a nutrition quiz devised by WIC staff. The quiz is an educational device, Heidkamp explains.

Clients are counseled and told whycertain foods are chosen for the WIC program. "What nutrients do eggs have? What do these nutrients do?" The answers are on the same page.

"It reinforces what we teach," saysHeidkamp.

A round-faced toddler rolls on thecarpet sucking a plastic bottle full of formula. Last year he was born 2 months premature. After a year on the program, his progress impresses the physician and the WIC nutritionists.

Rita Davis' job title is WIC officemanager. Like the rest of the staff, she may at times register new clients, follow up on those who don't show up, and phone in appointment reminders. She was here in 1974 when WIC began with about 100 clients.

"It was unheard of for babies to stayon formula for a year," she recalls. "Most families couldn't afford it and switched to cow's milk after 3 or 4 months."

Davis says that WIC has had astrong impact in the area. "People are now more aware that child health is connected to diet and nutrition."

WIC foods and

counseling help

Three years ago, Melissa Polley'shusband, Chris, lost his job in Circleville, Ohio. "We moved back here with our two children to his father's farm in Adams County," she says. They sold everything they had and were starting over with practically nothing.

Pregnant, Melissa worried becauseher two sons, Matthew and Ryan, had been born premature, and she had recently had a miscarriage.

When she heard about the WIC program,she was reluctant to sign up, she says. "We didn't want a handout."

She finally did sign up. "When youdon't have anything, and suddenly you have eggs, milk, peanut butter ... it was a tremendous help. And," she recalls, "WIC didn't make me feel degraded. The staff made me feel really good about myself and my family's future."

Her physician had warned her thather pregnancy was high risk, and that "the baby might not live," she says.

Polley stayed on the WIC diet the remainderof her pregnancy. "Bethany was born 2 weeks overdue, weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces, and was perfectly healthy," she says. "At the time I really needed it, I was eating the right foods."

Program sponsored

by health network

The Adams County WIC program issponsored by the Southern Ohio Health Services Network, a nonprofit health care services organization headquartered in Cincinnati. Founded in 1976 to help combat the critical health problems of four counties--Adams, Brown, Clermont, and Highland--the network operates a maternal and child health prenatal program at the Panhandle WIC clinic.

The network adopted the WIC programfrom the Adams County Hospital in 1981 and last year linked it with neighboring Brown County through three satellite offices.

Once a month, office manager Davisand a nutritionist pack up baby scales, a hermatocrit (blood count) machine, a folding table and chairs, and drive throughout the two counties registering mothers and children who need and qualify for WIC.

"One day in Fayettesville, we signedup 12 new clients in a garage," says Davis.

Since 1981, when the network tookover WIC, enrollment has increased from about 300 women, infants, and children to more than 1,000 in Adams County and more than 800 in Brown County.

Director Heidkamp says accessibilityand transportation present special problems in reaching rural clients. "About a fourth of the people don't have telephones. One in six don't have a car," she says.

Special efforts

reach clients

WIC, HELP, PREGNANT? are a fewof the tiny headlines atop two- and three-line announcements scattered among the yard sales and classified ads of county newspapers. The announcements are a good way to spread the word about WIC, says Heidkamp. Another is the Adams County Fair, where each year the WIC staff set up an information booth.