Last Tuesday (10), Maricella Marquez gave her three-year-old daughter a smaller-than-usual portion of the infant formula the little girl needs to stay healthy — she suffers from a rare allergic esophageal disease.
The family lives on the outskirts of San Antonio, in southern Texas, one of the cities hardest hit by the national infant formula crisis that is leaving American parents unsure how to feed their children.
In San Antonio, 56% of normal product volume was sold out on Tuesday, according to retail software company Datasembly. In the largely Hispanic city, many mothers do not have health insurance and work in jobs that give them little opportunity to breastfeed. Shelves are almost empty, and NGOs are working to gain access to new stocks.
The shortage of infant formula has worsened this year due to a brand recall, after four babies were hospitalized with a bacterial infection and at least two died. The recall was exacerbated by ongoing supply chain problems as well as labor shortages. Datasembly’s survey found that the national rate of infant formula shortages in the market reached 43% in the week ending Sunday, a 10% increase from April.
Republicans are taking advantage of the situation to criticize President Joe Biden, arguing that the administration has not done enough to increase production. On Tuesday, Senator Mitt Romney sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Agriculture saying that federal officials have been taking too long to respond to the problem.
The FDA said officials are working with Abbott Nutrition, the company involved in the recall, to restart production at its plant in Sturgis, Michigan.
“We recognize that many consumers have been unable to afford the infant formula and crucial medical foods they are used to using — and are frustrated with,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a statement. “We are doing everything in our power to make sure that suitable products are available where and when they are needed.”
Many mothers say they are rationing food. Some drive for hours to get formula, only to find empty shelves. Online sellers are charging extortionate prices, reaching double or triple the normal, and large retail chains are completely out of stock.
Since the closure of Abbott Nutrition’s Sturgis plant, other manufacturers have been struggling to ramp up production quickly, according to Rudi Leuschner, a professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School. “Some industries are able to lower or raise their production levels very quickly,” he says. “Just press a switch and they produce ten times the normal volume. But infant formula is not that kind of product.”
In addition to the larger supply chain problems that have emerged in the pandemic, such as a lack of manpower and difficulty accessing raw materials, the problem may be being exacerbated by panic buying, according to Leuschner.
Abbott Nutrition said it is doing everything it can, including increasing production at its other US plants and importing products from its Irish unit.
But for parents who are forced to give their babies less food than they need, even a temporary shortage is terrifying. Some are searching the internet for homemade recipes, but experts warn that they may not include vital nutrients — and even carry other risks.
“We also recommend that you don’t dilute the formula too much, as it can upset the child’s nutritional balance,” says Kelly Bocanegra, program manager for the federal Women, Babies, and Children program in Metro San Antonio. At the city’s Children’s Hospital, doctors have been encouraging mothers of newborns to breastfeed their babies as much as possible and pump more breast milk.
But some mothers are unable to breastfeed, due to insufficient milk or other problems — many work in sectors such as retail or in low-paying jobs and cannot afford to take the time necessary for this care.
Others, like Maricella Marquez, whose children need special diets, do not have the option of breastfeeding either. In some cases, those parents were already struggling to pay for cans of infant formula that can cost more than $100 each, according to Elyse Bernal, president of the nonprofit Any Baby Can.
For Darice Brown, the shortage of specialized infant formula is so acute in Oceanside (California) that she has considered going to the emergency room of a hospital just to feed her 10-month-old daughter Octavia, who has rare genetic conditions that make it impossible for her to consume solid foods. “I was going crazy, crying on the floor. I told my husband, ‘I don’t have enough to feed our daughters, I don’t know what to do,'” she says.
As of Tuesday, she still had four cans of formula for Octavia — all from products on the recall list — and she was trying to make them last by giving her smaller bottles.
Parents who have tried to buy formula online report that they have encountered not only higher prices, but scams as well. Two weeks ago, K-Rae Knowles, 30, of Oregon, sent money to a stranger in exchange for cans of a specialized formula she needed for her four-month-old son, Callan. The cans did not arrive, and the seller’s Facebook profile was deleted days later.
Maricella Marquez said she never imagined she would rely on the product to keep her daughter healthy, but since getting the child’s diagnosis, doctors have told her the special formula was the only thing that would keep her out of a hospital.
Since early April, she has been supplementing her daughter’s nutrition with fruits, vegetables, ground turkey and other plant-based proteins. “Other than that, there’s not much else she can eat.”
Even when found, infant formula is expensive. Marquez’s health insurance covers 80% of the cost, but the family still has to pay $375 a month. She plans to spend this week sampling other products that vendors still have in stock and testing which ones her daughter can tolerate. “I have no other choice.”
