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• Provide support and updated resources to local office staff so they are well equipped to outreach to new employers about the benefits of being a Breastfeeding Friendly Employer and feel they can adequately answer their questions.

With Providers • Continue to support public health detail visits to OB, Pediatric, and Family Practice provider offices to strengthen the collaboration and overall communication between WIC and health care providers with the goal of increasing enrollment in WIC prenatally and referring postpartum families to WIC for breastfeeding support through individual appointments as well as through group education. • Continue to partner with health care providers in the hospitals and community to provide prenatal and postpartum education (in-person and virtually) and support for breastfeeding dyads.

Nutrition Services - Risk-Related

Goal I: Improve birth outcomes for both mothers and infants. Objective 1: Increase to at least 38 percent the proportion of women entering WIC

during pregnancy who are at a healthy pre-pregnancy weight.

Baseline: 34.4%, data source: Vital Records, Vermont Resident Births between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2020.

Reference: Healthy People 2030 Goal MICH–13: Increase the proportion of women delivering a live birth who had a healthy weight prior to pregnancy to 47.1% Activities: • Work with Health Equity partners to ensure work is informed and incorporates DEI strategies. • Engage the Nutrition Education Workgroup to strategize ways to improve pre-pregnancy weight status. • Use the evaluation results of WIC staff access to the Vermont Health Information Exchange (VHIE) to inform best practices for accessing clinical measurement data to complete health assessments. Develop and test a system connection between the VHIE and the WIC Management Information System. Partner with VITL (the organization that runs the VHIE), local agencies, and health care providers to improve and increase measurement data for the WIC population in the VHIE.

Objective 2: Reduce to 30 percent the proportion of pregnant WIC participants who report smoking during their pregnancies.

Reference: Healthy People 2030: Increase abstinence from cigarette smoking among pregnant women — MICH‑10. Increase abstinence from cigarette smoking among pregnant women to 95.7%. Activities: • Continue to work with FCH/LH and the Tobacco program to ensure that all pregnant women who smoke and want to quit are referred to appropriate resources. • Continue to refer eligible pregnant women to incentive-based smoking cessation programs. • Ensure that all prenatal participants are screened for nicotine/tobacco use and encouraged to accept referral to a quit resource.