“I tried and I tried,” said Hodges, who lives in Detroit, Michigan with her eight-month-old daughter, Amira.
Hodges was unable to breastfeed for part of her hospital stay after she was put to rest and her daughter was taken to kindergarten. And although the hospital offered her breastfeeding support, Hodges found it difficult to produce enough milk when she returned home.
So he kept a steady supply of formula. Only in early May did it meet for the first time empty store shelves.
With a little formula at home, Hodges took a few hours off from her job as a quality analyst and searched. Target had a note that the formula boxes should be located, informing buyers of a shortage. Walmart and BuyBuy Baby were also out of the brand Hodges needed.
“I was crying … I had chills in my body because I have to feed my 8-month-old,” he said. “How did it get so bad?”
Like many recent crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the current rise in inflation, the shortage of infant milk in the country is revealing.
Many of us first learned that four companies produce about 90% of what is a vital food source for younger Americans. We discovered that the temporary closure of a single brewery in Michigan could cause such a severe deficit that it sparked national panic.
And we have seen mothers from all backgrounds struggle with the fear that they may not be able to ensure that their children have enough food.
But women with lower incomes rely on formula more than other mothers. Formula is often the only option for women, disproportionately black and brown, who focus on lower paid jobs that may not provide the space or flexibility to pump breast milk at work.
And the formula is crucial for black women who, due to historical injustices and systemic prejudices and barriers that persist, breastfeed much less than their peers.
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For many of these mothers, the lack was particularly challenging.
“At the end of the day, Abbott’s recall has really affected all the parents of breastfed babies, but it has widened the long-standing disparities,” said Brian Dittmeier, senior public policy director at the National WIC Association. for-profit defense. arm of the WIC (Special Nutritional Supplement Program for Women, Babies and Children) that buys 56% of baby milk in the US.
“Now looking for a formula is a full-time job,” says Dittmeier, “but lower-income families will not have the time, especially if they work in many jobs.”
Some mothers have to go to many stores, she says. And “every now and then I hear stories about a mom having to do it on foot or on public transportation because she doesn’t have a car.”
What to do if you can not find baby formula?
For those living in food deserts – underserved communities that do not have supermarkets – it may already have been difficult to locate baby milk nearby. But in February, Abbott Nutrition recalled some of its products and the company’s plant in Sturgis, Michigan, closed, exacerbating a shortage that began when the global supply chain slowed during the pandemic. BIDEN SAYS HE DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE LACK OF BABY FORMULA: Biden says he was not informed of a lack of baby milk until April. The companies knew “from the beginning”. HOW TO GET OUT OF THE FORMULA: Going from baby formula during the absence? See how to do it safely. Since then, mothers have traveled to public lines or visited food banks to look for formula. Some, say family’s advocates, extend the little formula they have with regular milk or other ingredients that can be harmful to their children. And some low-income parents receiving WIC nutrition say they had to pay out of pocket for whatever formula they could find despite interim measures allowing the WIC, after Abbott’s withdrawal, to increase the number. of milk brands to be covered in various states. “This is in many ways an excellent example of how we need systemic investment in ensuring that families, and especially mothers, can keep their children safe and well fed,” said Wendoly Marte, Director of Financial Justice. in Community Change. a justice organization that works to build the power of low-income people and people of color. “We know that the richest families are not struggling to find formula for their babies.”
Why infant formula?
For Hodges, affordable price was not a problem. She just could not find a formula to feed her baby.
She called her mother, her sister in Atlanta and her daughter’s other grandmother. The family members got up and were able to find some formula boxes here, some boxes there.
Now Hodges has once again a steady supply. It also has a network of relatives who are informed to buy formula whenever they see it.
Infant formula brought from Europe to help reduce shortages
The infant formula from a Nestlé reserve in Germany was sent to the US to help address the critical shortage. Another shipment is expected later this week.
Damien Henderson, USA TODAY
But he does not take risks. Her daughter drinks less at night, so Hodges maintains the formula, feeding her fewer ounces to make sure she doesn’t miss a drop. And Hodges started introducing her baby girl to solid foods earlier than she would if milk were plentiful.
“You would never have thought that you should be so strategic in feeding your baby for lack of food,” he says.
About 20% of black women breastfeed exclusively for up to six months, compared with 23% of Hispanic women and 29% of non-Hispanic whites, according to the CDC.
Some women find it difficult or impossible to breastfeed for health reasons, but there are also a number of social structures, prejudices and pressures – from the workplace to the doctor’s office – that push mothers, especially those who are black, Latino or earn lower wages, to rely on the formula, experts say.
“We have to think about all the different ways in which some women became discouraged from breastfeeding or were not given the option to breastfeed and became addicted to formula,” says Andrea Freeman, author of Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race. and Injustice. “The point is not to say, ‘The breasts are better, everyone should do it.’
The same discrimination that contributes to higher maternal mortality rates for black women also leads to them not receiving the support they may need to breastfeed, says Freeman, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Hawaii.
“The medical community … often assumes that black women will not breastfeed and give formula to their babies without asking,” she said, citing her own research.
Since the 1940s, the black community has also been encouraged to use targeted marketing formulas, ranging from advertising campaigns to the distribution of these products by hospitals and pediatric offices, Freeman says.
“In the US we feed babies milk”
There has been a similar targeting of the Hispanic community, says Rocio Velazquez, a certified spokesman for La Leche League, a global organization that supports breastfeeding parents in Dade County, Miami.
“Especially for immigrants, there is a message that ‘here in the US we are feeding babies milk,’” he says.
There is not always enough breastfeeding support for mothers who need this guidance in Spanish, says Velazquez. And like black women, Latins have disproportionate jobs that may not offer the paid leave or flexibility they need to continue breastfeeding if they have started.
“Most Latin mothers would like to breastfeed their babies because it is part of our culture,” she says. “But you are in a country where there is no family parental leave. It depends on your employer χω I have supported mothers who want to breastfeed their baby for a year or more, but have to return to work after 10 days.”
Under the Fair Work Standards Act, employers must provide breaks that allow all employees who are not exempt from federal overtime pay requirements to pump milk. They also need to provide a private space in addition to a toilet where they can do it.
However, there are exceptions for workplaces with less than 50 employees if they can show that the requirement is difficult. And even workplaces that provide such spaces to new mothers “must apply to politics what it entails, a change of mindset, a cultural change and flexibility,” says Rocio.
“For us black moms it is even more of a struggle”
Marie Anyiam, 41, who works in a school district and lives in Richmond, California, has breastfed both of her children, including her eldest son, who was exclusively breastfed until the age of one. She has always had excellent breastfeeding support, both through the hospital where she gave birth and through a black baby health program in which she participated. The school district where she works has also hosted her, providing her with a clean private room where she can pump her milk. But her almost one-year-old daughter has digestive problems that made it difficult to gain weight, so Anyiam had to supplement her breast milk with a non-allergenic baby milk. After her own moment of panic trying to spot it this spring, she says she worries about other black mothers “For us black moms, it’s even harder because we don’t have that many resources at our disposal,” says Anyiam, adding that she was recently concerned about how the formula is being imported from abroad by Biden …
