Across much of the United States, parents are looking for infant formula. They help each other with self-help groups and milk banks – but desperation is growing.
The shelves for baby food in America have been mostly empty for months.
Standing in front of a playground in Mission, San Francisco’s Hispanic neighborhood, Kevin Ulloa is holding his 10-month-old daughter Kimberly, trying to give her a bottle of milk. He tells of the struggles he had to go through to get the milk inside. “Sometimes I drive all over town to find a Box Enfamil,” says Ulluo, who works around the corner at a Mexican restaurant. It’s been like this for months, but his daughter doesn’t drink any other brand. At the moment they still have two packs at home, which is enough for a week. And what does he do if he can’t find new milk powder in time? ‘Then we’ll try regular food – rice, potatoes, eggs. What should I do otherwise?”
A perfect storm that has been brewing for years
The US is currently experiencing a drastic shortage of powdered baby milk, which is affecting families across the country. The catalyst that started the crisis was the February closure of Michigan’s largest baby formula factory in the country. The manufacturer Abbott Nutrition had previously had to recall several products manufactured there because they were suspected to be contaminated with bacteria.
But the crisis in the infant formula market had been brewing for years: supplier oligopoly coupled with supply chain problems, state intervention and protectionism – a perfect storm. Parents from Boston to Los Angeles are now wondering how to reliably feed their babies. Although Abbott Nutrition agreed with the FDA to reopen the Michigan factory a few days ago, it will probably be weeks before the milk powder that has now been produced reaches the supermarket shelves in rural America.
Meanwhile, the lack of baby food is also making the Washington government sweat. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden activated the “Defense Production Act”, which was actually intended for wartime, so that manufacturers of baby formula are given preferential treatment to suppliers. The Ministry of Defense also instructed commercial airlines to help import milk powder from abroad. As part of this “Fly Formula” operation, a specially rented machine from Switzerland landed in Indianapolis on Friday, loaded with enough Nestle baby food to fill 1.5 million bottles of 250 milliliters each. This is hypoallergenic food for cow’s milk allergy; Babies with this intolerance are particularly hard hit by the current shortage because there are few alternative products for them.
The hunt for milk powder is “like a part-time job”
As Washington looks for ways out of the crisis, for mothers like Renee Canazaro, finding powdered milk has become what she says is a “part-time job.” The mother of three and housewife lives in Portland, Oregon and has been touring the city’s supermarkets for milk powder every week for months. “It’s so time-consuming,” she says on the phone, her husband also searches the Internet for milk powder several evenings a week – often in vain. Her twelve-week-old son doesn’t tolerate every variety, but she can’t be very picky, even if he has a stomach ache for a few days with every change. A few days ago she panicked that she would soon no longer be able to feed her baby. Now she is waiting for two packs of powdered milk that a friend from Atlanta will send her. That should last about two weeks.
The lack of milk powder has also driven Danielle Weese to despair. The 31-year-old housewife lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and her nine-month-old daughter has only been drinking powdered milk since birth. Due to reflux, she needs a specific product – but getting it has been becoming increasingly difficult for months. “I have to go through countless shops with her in tow before I finally find it,” says Weese; relatives and friends of the family hunt for the special powder all over the country.
A few weeks ago, Weese also asked acquaintances for help on Facebook – and realized that other mothers were doing the same. She then founded the “milk powder deficiency self-help group” on Facebook, which after two weeks already has more than 2,000 users across the country. “I saw these cans in a supermarket north of Chicago,” writes a user there under a photo, “tell me if I should send them to you!” A woman from South Florida is desperately looking for a special food, a user in Kentucky reports on the “nightmare” there. Someone from Arizona accepts shopping requests from strangers because their local supermarket is well stocked. “Just send me back the price plus postage.” The contributions leave one amazed at the largest economy in the world, which suddenly can no longer feed its babies reliably.
The reactions in the group are really great, says Weese, “It’s not just mothers, but fathers, other relatives, friends, strangers who help each other.” You have now been able to stock up for several months.
Many mothers also report that they now order their milk powder from Canada or Europe. German milk powder in particular is considered to be of high quality because Germany has very strict food regulations. But that’s only an option for families who can afford the imports. In the self-help group on Facebook, desperate parents who usually get powdered milk for their babies through a government subsidy program called WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) from the US Department of Agriculture. But with the WIC food brands, families can only buy certain milk powder products in traditional supermarkets – if these are out of stock, they have no option of switching to other products or private sales. Some users in the support group offer those affected to give them milk powder. As is well known, where the state fails, Americans often help each other.
However, the current lack of baby milk formula also brings with it a string of unexpected problems. So mothers report that plastic bags are out of stock to freeze breast milk. Some parents are also apparently starting to hoard milk powder: According to the market research company IRI, sales in April were 13 percent higher than in January, before Abbott started its recall.
Nothing can replace milk in the first year of life
Rumors are also circulating on the Internet: Couldn’t the babies be given cow’s milk as an alternative? Or switch to solid food sooner? Absolutely not, says Sarah Quigley, a lactation consultant at the University of California San Francisco. “Milk, whether breast milk or powdered milk, is the most important source of nutrients and calories for children in their first year of life.” Nothing can replace it – not even pure cow’s milk, as this can lead to internal bleeding in babies under twelve months. Giving solid food earlier is also not an option, says Quigley. The rule applies: “Eating before the first year is just for fun.”
“The parents are currently in a very difficult situation,” she says. In her breastfeeding advice, she tells breastfeeding mothers who don’t have enough milk not to be too picky about their choice of powder, but to give them any brand they can find. It is different with babies who are dependent on hypoallergenic milk powder – they could get sick from other products. Some mothers in their breastfeeding consultation are now breastfeeding longer than they actually intended, says Quigley, because they lacked alternatives or because they didn’t want to take milk powder away from other parents.
The shortage is particularly tragic for parents for whom breast milk is no alternative – for example because the mother cannot produce one herself or because the child was adopted. One solution is milk banks like the one in San Jose, to which breastfeeding mothers donate their excess milk. “We feel the current lack of milk powder very clearly,” says employee Angelica Rojas on the phone. Twice as many mothers as usual would now donate, but the demand has also increased massively. “Both sides are currently balanced,” says Rojas, but if the shortage of milk powder continues for a long time, it could tip over. With targeted advertising campaigns, they try to find more donors as a precaution. These would not be paid – no false incentives are to be created – but there would be a small gift. But many mothers didn’t even want that. “They’re just worried that other babies might not have enough to eat.”
The NZZ correspondent Marie-Astrid Langer follow on twitter.