Families across the country are grappling with an increasingly dire baby food shortage.
Driving the news: The shortage, exacerbated by pandemic-related supply chain issues and recent product recalls, has pushed up the price of formula in certain communities.
- The shortage started in 2021 largely with production issues or distribution problems, and by mid-March 29% of the nationwide formulation inventory was out, reports Axios’ Nathan Bomey.
- According to Datasembly, a consumer goods data analytics company, it rose to 31% in April.
What you say: Diana Torres, the mother of a 5-month-old, told WVIT, a Connecticut-based NBC affiliate, that finding formula had been a nightmare and that she had noticed price gouging from online sales.
- WVIT reported that a 3-pack of Similac baby formula sold on eBay for $238, plus $20 for shipping. The same product costs about $130 at a wholesale store.
- Several moms across New York told WGRZ, another Buffalo-based NBC affiliate, that they were having trouble finding formula at chain stores and online. When some had found formula, it was too expensive.
- “My baby had to go at least a day almost without food because I couldn’t find it and it was expensive and had almost no money to get it. I have trouble finding it sometimes,” Cassidy Rogers, a mom from Orchard Park, New York, told WGRZ.
- In Texas, 30-year-old mother Mary Salvador told the Houston Chronicle that she searched Facebook for formulas for her 3-month-old where products could be tampered with.
The big picture: According to CBS News, drugstore chains like Walgreens and CVS Health, as well as some retail chains, have recently restricted how much infant formula consumers can buy at one time.
- About 3 out of 4 babies are bottle-fed as a full or partial replacement for breast milk within the first six months.
- Magna Dias, associate professor at Yale School of Medicine and pediatrician, told WVIT that mothers who are having trouble finding a formula should not attempt to make their own formula, should not dilute the formula they have, so that it lasts longer, and you shouldn’t buy it online from overseas sellers.
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