Baby formula scramble

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 17th of May, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Before we get rolling here, Nick, great news from one of our longtime donors who’s laying down a challenge this week only to help motivate people to give for the first time in support of this program.

EICHER: Right, offering a match, but only for this week, to double the impact of your first gift.

It’s not a set amount, you know, we’ve done that in the past where a donor will match up to a certain amount, but this match is different. It’s for a set amount of time: So today, tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, all first-time gifts are doubled.

If you give $50, it’s matched and becomes $100, so maybe you’re on the fence and you need just one more good reason, maybe this will be the added motivation you need.

REICHARD: What a deal! Just a nudge, a competitive tripwire for the driven let’s say! What you need to do is go to WNG.org/newdonor so that your gift qualifies for the match!

EICHER: And that is what powers our journalism here at WORLD, support from listeners and readers and viewers, so we can be here every day with news from a Biblical worldview perspective. May is our month for new donors and we encourage you to take advantage of this week’s matching offer. WNG.org/newdonor.

REICHARD: Alright. Well, first up on The WORLD and Everything in It: the shortage of baby formula.

Four out of 5 babies begin life breastfeeding. But by six months, three-quarters of that group need at least some formula.

That means millions of American families are feeling the pinch of an ongoing shortage. WORLD Special Correspondent Sarah Schweinsberg reports on what is behind the problem and how families can cope.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG: Alissa Rice is a young, new mom.

RICE: I am 24 years old and I'm from Manson, Iowa. My baby was born in December, December 8th.

Rice started out breastfeeding her daughter, Willow. But it didn’t go very well. Willow would still cry after her feedings.

RICE:. So once we switched to formula, she was way happier. So I thought that was the best route to go.

Rice began using the formula brand, Similac. But then in February, the formula’s parent company, Abbot, had to recall Similac along with two other brands it makes. That after a cluster of babies became sick from contaminated formula. Two babies died.

RICE: So then, I was scared and I didn't want to use that brand anymore.

So Rice found a new formula for her daughter. But that didn’t last long either.

RICE: One day I walked into the store and there was literally nothing on the shelves.

Rice isn’t the only parent facing severely limited formula options. Retail pricing data website, Datasembly, tracks formula products at more than 11,000 stores. The company found that 43 percent of the top-selling formula products in the country were out of stock as of May 8th.

In Iowa, where Rice lives, more than half of formula brands are out of stock.

Brad Taylor is a nutrition and dietetics professor at Brigham Young University, but he spent most of his career researching and creating infant formulas. He says today’s drastic shortage has been building for a while.

First, pandemic restrictions and lockdowns slowed down formula production.

TAYLOR: We heard a lot about the meatpacking industry and other segments that were facing challenges related to labor and COVID…the dairy sector, and then all the way up to premium nutritional products, including infant formula, certainly faced similar challenges.

Then a series of events earlier this year further tightened supply: the Abbot recall in February along with global supply chain problems caused by labor shortages and war.

TAYLOR: Over 80 percent of the sunflower oil, which is a very, very common ingredient in infant formula, is traditionally sourced from Ukraine.

And it is not easy for manufacturers to simply swap in new ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration treats formulas like pharmaceutical drugs, so any changes must be FDA approved. That means stores also can’t import formulas from foreign manufacturers.

And parents facing shortages can’t simply make their own formula with powdered milks at home. Babies might get enough calories that way, but they would miss out on critical nutrients.

TAYLOR: You'll find that infant formula is one that contains many components going down to trace minerals, and even what we call ultra trace minerals… there's over 29 regulated attributes that you could say are part of the nutritional profile of a given infant formula.

As shortages drag on, some stores like Target and Walgreens have started limiting how much formula parents can buy. Taylor says it’s not clear whether that policy actually helps or hurts more.

TAYLOR: Does that exacerbate the problem and drive more fear…Or does it actually help in terms of distributing among those who need it?

In the meantime, manufacturers say they are doing their best to ramp up production. And the FDA says it’s trying to help by speeding up its regulatory process as well as allowing the shutdown Abbot formula plant to reopen in two weeks.

And the agency announced on Friday that it will also allow imports of baby formula from European factories.

Bridget Young is a pediatrics professor at the University of Rochester. She helps parents pick the best formula for their babies. She says while parents wait for a specific formula to come back in stock, it is possible for many babies to switch back and forth between available brands. The trick is to match a few key ingredients.

YOUNG: We just want to focus on those first couple of ingredients that make up 98 percent of your formula. And if you can only match one thing, match the protein source because protein is by far the most likely thing that causes a baby to have an issue with their formula.

Most formulas are made from dehydrated cow’s milk. Within cow’s milk there are two types of proteins: whey proteins and casein proteins. Match the ratios of these proteins as close as possible between formulas.

Young says another key element to check is how the proteins have been broken up into bigger or smaller molecules.

YOUNG: If your baby's on one of those formulas that we refer to as partially hydrolyzed it just means the proteins have been broken up into smaller pieces that are more in line with the size of breast milk proteins…So you want to find another formula that also has the words partially hydrolyzed... following those rules and really matching the major ingredients, your baby really should transition well.

Parents can also rely on their network of friends and family. When Alissa Rice could not find her daughter’s formula, she posted on Facebook. Friends and family in neighboring cities and states began looking for it. Now, she’s had people mail formula and even deliver it to her house.

That, she says, brings her a lot of comfort during a stressful time.

RICE: For a while I was super scared. But now I feel like we have a lot of people in our corner and if they do see this kind they will pick it up for us. So that makes me very thankful.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

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