The logo of the Women, Infants, and Children federal welfare program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the 7-billion dollar Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as the WIC, will be heavily downgraded due to the uncertainty of future funding.

"No additional federal funds would be available to support the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)'s clinical services, food benefits, and administrative costs," announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture Saturday in a public statement.

9 million mothers and children under five years of age living in poverty rely on the WIC programs for food vouchers, baby food, and other child care necessities provided by welfare clinics in states across the U.S.

At least one state has been forced to shut down its WIC program following the government shutdown, and other state-funded WIC services are similarly struggling to maintain its services, with the well-being of millions of poor American mothers and their children on the line.

Most states' WIC programs are following the only conceivable strategy: 

"The decision is, basically what little money we've got to carry forward we should spend that on getting as much food to people as possible rather than continuing to take new clients and continuing to issue new vouchers," department spokesman Tom Hudachko told HuffPost, representing Utah's Department of Health.

Utah's WIC program announced on Tuesday they would not be accepting any new clients, but guaranteed continued service for its 60,000 clients.

The USDA have enough contingency funds to keep the WIC programs limping along for a few days, and estimate that most states will only manage to function for a week if the government shutdown is not remediated.

"American is not realizing how many low-income pregnant women and children we have in this country," said Margaret Saunders, director of the Chicago WIC program, on Tuesday evening. "They have no safety net. These women are trying to have a healthy pregnancy, and they're asking, 'how am I going to feed my family?'" 

Reach Executive Producer Benjamin Li here.