WIC nutrition education: what you are owed

A benefit, not a condition

Section 246.11(a) treats nutrition education, including breastfeeding promotion and support, as a benefit of WIC. It must be available at no cost to the participant and designed to be easily understood. It must bear a practical relationship to what the participant needs, the household situation and cultural preferences, including how to choose food and what the maximum monthly allowances of authorized foods are.

The State agency must make it available to every participant, directly through local agencies or by arrangement with other agencies. At certification the local agency is to stress the long-term benefits and encourage participation. But the regulation closes the door on using it as leverage: individual participants must not be denied supplemental foods for failing to attend or take part in nutrition education.

Drug and substance information

The rule makes drug and other harmful substance abuse information an integral part of the education. Local agencies must give it to all pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women and to parents or caretakers of infants and children in the program. The goals section adds that education should raise awareness of the dangers of drugs and other harmful substances during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

The two goals

The first goal is to emphasize the connection between nutrition, physical activity and health, with special attention to the nutritional needs of pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, infants and children under five. The second is to help people at nutritional risk improve their health and make positive changes in diet and physical activity, and to help prevent nutrition-related problems through the best use of WIC foods and other nutritious foods. The rule asks that this be taught in the context of ethnic, cultural and geographic preferences and with attention to educational and environmental limits people face.

How many contacts

The participant contact rule in paragraph (e) is the part with numbers. During each six-month certification period, at least two nutrition contacts must be made available to every adult participant and to the parents or caretakers of infant and child participants, and wherever possible to the children themselves. For a certification period longer than six months, contacts for parents and caretakers of infants and children are made available at a quarterly rate, scheduled periodically. They do not have to fall in each quarter.

Contacts can be individual or group sessions suited to the participant’s needs. All pregnant participants are encouraged to breastfeed unless it is contraindicated for health reasons. An individual care plan is provided when the competent professional authority decides one is needed, and any participant, parent or caretaker gets one on request. The calculator turns your certification length into a minimum count; for a period over six months and an adult participant it simply scales the stated six-month figure, which is our reading of the text, not a printed number.

What the State and local agency must do

State agencies coordinate the education component, provide in-service training for local staff, including training on promoting and managing breastfeeding, and identify or develop materials, including materials in languages other than English where a significant share of the population needs them. They must set standards for participant contacts and for breastfeeding support, and monitor local agencies.

The breastfeeding standards must include four items at a minimum: a policy that creates a positive clinic environment endorsing breastfeeding as the preferred method of infant feeding; a designated staff person at each local agency to coordinate promotion and support; task-appropriate breastfeeding training in orientation for new staff who deal directly with clients; and a plan so that women can reach breastfeeding support during pregnancy and after birth.

Local agencies make education available to all adult participants and to parents or caretakers of infants and children, develop an annual local plan consistent with the State’s, and submit it by the date the State sets. Contacts must meet different cultural and language needs.

Records and missed visits

The local agency documents in each participant’s certification file that education was given according to State standards. The second and later group-setting contacts in a certification period may be documented in a master file. A missed appointment is also documented, again with a master-file option for second or later missed group contacts. Documentation exists for monitoring and further education efforts, not for taking away foods.

Limits of this page

The federal rule sets a floor. How a State schedules contacts, whether it offers classes online or by phone, and how it counts a contact are State decisions that this page cannot see. If you think you are being asked to attend a class to receive foods, or are not being offered any contacts, your local agency and then the State WIC office are the places to ask, and the fair hearing procedure for participants is described on our WIC fair hearing page.

Sources

• 7 CFR 246.11, Nutrition education: eCFR text current through the October 29, 2026 issue date. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: 7 CFR 246.11 (eCFR, current through the October 29, 2026 issue date). This page summarizes the rule and does not replace it.