For most families, WIC means access to food benefits, nutrition education, and a connection to community resources. But for Samantha and her newborn son Mateo, it meant something more.
Samantha wasn’t planning to come in. She had just had her son Mateo, her third child, and when her WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Aurora asked if she wanted to come to the Bellflower WIC office to check on his latch, her first instinct was to say no. “I wasn’t going to,” Samantha recalls, “but something just told me, let me just go.”
When Samantha arrived, Aurora noticed that Mateo, then about ten days old, looked unusually yellow. Yellowing in newborns is common in the first few days of life, but at ten days, significant jaundice across the face, chest, and torso can signal something more serious. Aurora flagged the concern and looped in Kristen Towner, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) with PHFE WIC, who called Samantha directly.
Kristen had been alerted to Mateo through PHFE WIC’s Red Alert Baby (RAB) protocol, a system developed by PHFE WIC’s Cindy Clapp to identify newborns at high risk of malnourishment and ensure they get timely follow-up. She and Samantha talked through Mateo’s weight, his feeding, and the jaundice. Kristen’s concern about his bilirubin levels, which hadn’t been checked since day two of his life, before they typically peak, was clear. She encouraged Samantha to get him seen by a doctor.
When Samantha ran into difficulty getting Mateo in to see a pediatrician, she told Kristen she was thinking of taking him to urgent care or the ER. Kristen supported the decision. Samantha took him to Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital, where they were seen immediately. A nurse in the lobby noticed Mateo in his car seat and flagged that he seemed lethargic. His bilirubin came back at 23, above the level at which it can cause serious harm to a developing brain. He was admitted and started on phototherapy.
The next day, Samantha called Kristen to share the news. “I was telling her, I’m so thankful that I was able to have Aurora and her team in my path,” Samantha says. “Because who knows — if I would have never gone in, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Kristen felt it too. “I told her how proud I was that, as a team, we noticed concerning signs and acted on them,” she later wrote.
Mateo recovered fully. He is home and doing well.
For Samantha, the experience reframed what WIC means to her family. Mateo is her first child where she has had breastfeeding support, and what she encountered went well beyond what she expected. “It’s not just benefits,” she says. “There’s the breastfeeding support, the educational classes — and the people at WIC are wonderful. They make you feel at home, really part of the WIC family.”
Her message to other mothers considering the program is simple: “Just go ahead and join. If you don’t, you’re missing out on a lot.”
About PHFE WIC PHFE WIC, a program of Heluna Health, is the largest WIC agency in the country. The program serves parents, infants and children in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. PHFE WIC is nationally recognized as a leader and innovator in nutrition education, breastfeeding support, staff training, customer service and outreach to community partners.
