The Cole County Health Department has renewed its contract for 2014 with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to continue to provide Women, Infants and Children (WIC) services.
Under the terms of the contract, the Cole County WIC program may serve 1,746 people every month.
WIC, a supplemental nutrition program, provides healthy foods, nutrition and breastfeeding education, and referrals to other health programs at no cost for those eligible. To be eligible for the program, persons must be pregnant, breastfeeding or postpartum women, and the infants and children must be under the age of 5. Participants must meet income guidelines.
Participants of the WIC program are issued checks to buy healthy foods at local grocery stores. They may receive foods such as beans, legumes, fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereal, bread, tortillas, rice, soymilk, tofu, canned fish, milk, cheese, eggs, peanut butter and fruit juices.
Although the WIC program strongly recommends breastfeeding, infant formula is provided when infants are not breastfed. Parents should make plans to continue buying formula for their infants during the entire first year, since the amount of formula provided will not meet all of an infant's nutrition needs. Infants may also receive infant cereal, fruits, and vegetables. In addition to these foods, infant meats are provided to fully breastfed infants.
The Cole County Health Department's WIC Program is located at 1616 Industrial Drive, and hours of operation are 7:30 a.m-5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Persons interested in applying or in need of more information should call 636-2181 or visit www.colehealth.org.