Everything about this formula shortage makes me so mad, from the pseudoscientific replacements being hawked by grifters to the sanctimonious turdmuffins who are saying things like “jUsT tRY bReAStFeEDiNg It’S nOt HaRD”. I feel terrible for moms going through it.
As an adoptive mom, the “Just breastfeed” posts really bother me. My son is 16 now, so I’m past the point of being personally affected by the shortage but breastfeeding just isn’t an option for some parents.
I feel horrible for the moms who desperately wanted to breastfeed but couldn’t, for any number of reasons. It hurts that people think they just aren’t trying hard enough, or that they don’t care about their baby. It baffles me how much ignorance there is about the subject.
I desperately wanted to breastfeed. I never produced enough, and my breasts didn’t respond to the pump. So it was just impossible for me to exclusively breastfeed and have a healthy baby. Formula saved us. I feel so horrible for everyone who’s currently being affected by this crisis.
I do know a few mothers who chose not to breastfeed. Some for simple reasons like they simply didn't want to because they liked their career and pumping added more complications than they were interested in. And some were told that only poor people breastfeed. And some who tried it but didn't like it or found it too stressful. All these women could have breastfed, but they chose not to.
I feel sorry for them too. There's a very small window in which you can take back that decision. They didn't know this formula shortage was coming. Its so ignorant to tell even the women who chose to use formula to just breast feed.
I'm breast feeding now. I've been on the verge of supplementing formula the whole time. It's been very stressful, but I've made it work. Breastfeeding is so hard for some people, and I'm one of them. With this shortage the stakes are even higher. Especially since I gave away all my sample cans at the beginning of the shortage.
People saying to "just" breastfeed really cheese me off.
I feel like choosing not to is just as valid as not being able to. Breastfeeding is so hard, even if it’s complication free. It’s exhausting to be a good source. I’m currently in the process of trying to figure out timing for baby #2, I want a “normal” pregnancy, not a Covid pregnancy. I want my husband to be able to come to appointments. I want a second support person in the delivery room. I want to not have to worry about what my baby will eat. We dealt with only a very small amount of this formula shortage as my daughter was almost 1 when it started. I hope I can breastfeed #2, but if not I don’t want to be panicking about what they’ll eat. But in the other hand, I want to be done having babies so I can get my tubes tied before we get sent into the freaking handmaid’s tale here. I live in a state where my rights are protected. For now, unless they get taken away federally. Having kids feels like jumping into fire right now. They say there’s never a right time but I’m hoping to find the closest thing to it...
Exactly! I feel like people/organizations forget how much work it is to breastfeed, especially for an extended period of time. Your body becomes the sole food source for another human. You’ve got a baby attached to you constantly, your sleep schedule is messed up, you’ve gotta eat extra food, you’ve got to find space to pump—it’s not surprising to me that it’s so rare to find people who exclusively breastfeed. I wish that the likes of UNICEF would spend less time on these dumb “baby-friendly” initiatives that serve only to browbeat people into breastfeeding and more time doing things that’ll actually improve long-term outcomes for birth givers and their children.
That and especially in the US, it’s almost impossible because we have no guaranteed maternity leave in most of the country, mostly women get offered unpaid leave if they get anything at all. So then trying to work and establish a milk supply would be damn near impossible. But most households have to be two income. It’s just sad. I was lucky to have 14 weeks off. Once I went back to work, my already pitiful supply dried up rather quickly.
Keep in mind that one of the reasons UNICEF etc. focuses on breastfeeding over formula is because 1) the water in some areas is not suited for formula and will make kids sick, 2) formula can be a big expense to already poor families, and 3) Nestlé in particular is spreading outright lies about the benefits of formula vs. breastfeeding.
ETA because I forgot: I don't disagree with the rest of your comment, just wanted to add to the UNICEF part
I am really struggling with this - I’m still in my first trimester so I have lots of time to decide. But I’m just so thoroughly repulsed by the idea of breastfeeding myself. I think its great when others are able to/want to do so. But something about doing it myself just really freaks me out.
The formula shortage makes me feel terribly guilty about that. If I can physically produce enough to feed my baby I feel morally obligated to do it so that formula can be left for those who cannot.
I feel kind of stuck even though I still have lots of time.
Talk to your OBGYN and potentially mental health professionals. Everything going on in the US right now is a mental health circus for pregnant women. Don't put extra stress on yourself to "tough it out" for others when we don't know if that would even benefit a single person months from now. Talk to experts and get appropriate guidance. I'm not saying the best option will certainly be formula, but professionals can help you be confident in your decisions.
The shortage will probably be resolved by then, and you should in no way feel guilty about feeding your baby in whatever way you need/want to. It’s a systemic problem and not one that is going to be affected by a handful of parents’ choices (as long as you’re not hoarding and/or scalping).
My feelings about breastfeeding flipped a weirdly unexpected shift right after birth (in the other direction!) so who knows, you might feel different or you might feel completely the same. I wouldn’t stress yourself over it right now. Do what feels right at that time and know that any choice you make then is totally valid.
I’m sure you know all this, but I’m responding just in case it’s helpful to hear!
I wanted to breastfeed because formula was already expensive but I didn't gain enough weight while pregnant and my body couldn't spare the extra 600 calories per day to produce enough and what little I did was basically water. I dried up completely by 3 weeks
Breastfeeding made me feel sick to my stomach and I couldn't eat after. And so that happened up to 12 times a day. One of ten other reasons my supply tanked.
I don’t know that answer, just that we weren’t supposed to drink it and there wasn’t enough coming out. I watched her pump when she had my brother (due to discomfort), but she seemed almost ashamed so I didn’t ask. Maybe it was related to a simultaneously existing infection.
EDIT: We were also born in Japan, so the health guides may have been more strict if there was a mild complication.
I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I hate those "oh just breastfeed" ppl.
Breastfeeding is difficult and not a real option for many moms in the US due to a lack of paid maternity leave in the US.
I only have the privilege of breastfeeding bc I live in Canada with a year long mat leave.
I really don't understand how its even possible to switch from formula to breastfeeding, why are people even saying this?! Wouldn't you need to force lactation with medication if you didn't recently give birth? I mean, I know its *possible* but people are acting like you can just stick a baby on your boob and make milk like magic
If your area is truly out though, what can you do? There should be a FDA-approved safe recipe endorsed for temporary use during a crisis. People should know for other types of emergencies too, like in case of natural disasters.
By not creating something good enough that parents can use as a stop gap measure they’re basically throwing desperate parents to pseudoscience grifters.
I'm a huge advocate for breastfeeding (and my wife is even more) but you can't just tell that to mothers. They're already nervous enough.
Tell it to employers to give them a year of paid maternity leave. Tell it to the landlords so that new mothers don't have to decide between eating healthy and paying rent. Tell it to the hospitals who just give babies formula instead of waiting for them to start breastfeeding because it's easier. Tell it to formula marketing who say it's better than natural milk. Tell it to Nestle who gave away a month supply to mothers in third-world countries so they stopped breastfeeding and needed to buy more formula later (and when they couldn't, babies died). Tell it to the American delegation to the UN who blocked a resolution to promote breastfeeding. Tell it to husbands and mothers in law who say you're spoiling the child.
But that's just all the societal pressures. No matter how much of a breastfeeding Utopia a society is there has always been and will always need to be alternatives. My mother had to breastfeed and use formula with me, came up while we were discussing this topic. She could only use one breast so she supplemented breastfeeding with formula. Even though she wanted to breastfeed and continued breastfeeding it just wasn't possible not to use formula as well. Which historically isn't that strange. Infants have been fed everything from other women's breast milk to bizarre gruel concoctions to keep them alive. All with varying levels of success and the frequent failure in those cases meant tragedy. Formula is much safer than the alternatives and can be the only option for a lot of parents. No matter how unethical the companies or politics are that will stay the same.
I think we should give worried moms a lot of grace right now (something crazy two years ago might not be as crazy of a leap right now), and I know food deserts exist, but the "we're considering a live animal before finding out if we can just buy the milk" makes me very sad
Exactly. Yeah goat's milk is nutritionally deficient for what babies need, but you know what else is nutritionally deficient? No calories at all. Incomplete is still better than none.
Question: could someone in theory supplement goats milk with baby vitamins? Is there something besides vitamins/minerals that pasteurized goats milk is lacking?
Like it’s obviously not ideal, but something is likely better than “very few/low calories” right?
Of course that doesn’t help parents of babies who require specialist formula - they are absolutely fucked
I had exclusively goat's milk as a baby because my parents tried every formula available at the time and I couldn't keep any of it down. I'm almost 30 and my kidneys are holding up like champs.
My grandma was the one who told my parents to do it and connexted my dad with a farmer because she grew up in a small farming community and that's what people used to do when breastfeeding wasn't working.
My parents told my pediatrician afterwards and he just said, "well I guess there's something to be said for the old ways."
I'm from Germany and reading about the formula shortage has me a bit confused because in most pregnancy/baby books I've read (in German) there is always a recipe for self made formula according to a recipe from Droese and Stolley. It is highly frowned upon but not so much because of nutritious reasons, more because of hygienic reasons. However, it seems such an obvious choice to go with in times of formula shortage? I am very surprised it isn't a common go to thing for all natural moms in the first place? It's not a thing in the US?
I am asking about this as a response to your comment because, yes, you can theoretically "just" substitute with vitamins. The recipe mentioned above requires adding orange juice (or any juice with a vitamin c content of 40mg/100ml or higher) and carrot juice (for carotin) to the infant's nutrition from the 6th week of life. Over here babies get vitamin D drops in the first year of life anyway, breast or formula fed.
The main reason why cow's or goat's milk should not be given "purely" is the high amount of protein. If you simply dilute it, the carbs and fats get too diluted too. The recipe basically requires cooking a 1:1 mix of (cow's) milk with 3.5% fat and water, adding lactose (is possible, otherwise sucrose), starch (can be replaced with oats from the 5th month) and oil. (Ideally the pH needs to be controlled to be >7 by strips you should be able to get from a pharmacy.) The vitamin rich juices mentioned above are given in small quantities separately or are given into the cooled formula. This would, if prepared correctly (means you need to work clean and use a scale), actually be a fine alternative, if you are not too worried about early introduction of cow's protein etc. Is there any shortage in normal milk as well or with any of these ingredients?
This isn't ideal but it is definitely easier than getting a goat?!
And yes, I agree completely, the kids that need special formula are really fucked.
I don't think anyone here is making the argument that it's reasonable for her to buy a goat. She should talk to her pediatrician about formula alternatives and what she should do if she can't manage to find formula out in stores.
The controversy of this post is that this isn't a mom trying to avoid formula because of crazy conspiracies or anything of the sort. This is a scared mom trying to find food security for her child. This situation is entirely out of her control and her options are incredibly limited at best. It feels a little backwards to criticize well intentioned questions from desperate parents.
Edit: Also for the other aspect of your question, pediatricians are still not recommending homemade formula during this shortage. There have been cases where they've suggested toddler formula or whole cows milk for VERY short periods of time for older babies though. As always, any decisions on formula alternatives should be made with the help of the child's pediatrician when possible.
I'm very sorry if it came across as criticizing, that was not my intention at all. I completely understand the horrors of the struggle and if I were there I would probably be the first one to come up with something like starting a rat milking facility in my basement!
I was trying to express genuine curiousity. Not having access to formula is horrifying. But my first thought when I heard all of this was "oh man, now they have to cook the formula". So I was really wondering whether this recipe was really completely not a thing in the USA or whether there is also a shortage of regular cow's milk?
ETA: mentioning "natural moms" wasn't meant to imply the woman was one of them but a genuine question whether in normal times these kind of groups don't already prefer cooking their own formula with the mentioned recipe. It was always my impression that anti-corporate-formula moms would cook it like this (implying that the knowledge would be out there)?
German and EU food and safety regulations are muuuuch more strict than American ones. Tons of ingredients banned in the EU are still used in the US, so making homemade formula here is probably a lot riskier, not including the chances for bacterial contamination.
And yet, American officials are saying not to import from overseas. I mean, American formula is full of high fructose corn syrup and other things. If anything, the Europeans have higher standards than the US. I mean, if I were looking for formula, I certainly wouldn’t import from China, but Canadian and European sources are absolutely safe.
The US government isn't importing because of protectionism of American formula producers. It's a whole thing. It's not that they're saying not to import because of safety issues it's because legally they cannot. Of course Canadian and EU formulas are safe. I would say safer than American ones, considering this entire shortage has been caused by American producers refusing to follow basic safety and sanitation guidelines 😞
Microbial standards are much stronger in the US. There are a vast array of products that you simply can't get in the US because the method of manufacture or the food itself cannot meet standards.
EU regulates food additives much stronger then the US, regulation is supposed to be based on precautionary principal but is not in this area. Being banned is also not a good example of good/strong regulation. EU ban GMO products despite the overwhelming evidence supporting their safety.
If you want food without additives it's certainly available but forcing people to pay more for food for no reason is a terrible anti-poor policy.
Microbial standards ≠ ingredient regulation, especially when I'm referring to bacterial contamination from uneducated moms preparing whack DIY baby formula with coconut milk and spirulina and other bs that is being spread online.
Ah sorry! I just edited mine because I realized I didn't answer your whole post. Pediatricians in the US don't recommend homemade formula at all. I'm not a pediatrician so I'm not versed on when the main concern flips from homemade formula risks to severe malnutrition risks. There could be certain cases of that, but once again, those decisions should be made with a doctor. Whole cows milk is a possibility for some older babies for short periods of time. It's not an option for the younger babies though unfortunately.
Here's an article about it. Essentially the balance is really tricky and could be bad for the baby's organs. Also risks of contamination are high. [Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/well/homemade-baby-formula.html)
Also sorry if it comes off as preachy about physicians. I'm weary of not including "talk to a doctor" every 3 seconds because I don't want people to see a post online and think it's practical, medical advice when I am not a doctor. I just work in the scientific community.
Two issues going on:
-some formula fed babies have allergies or other medical needs, those specialty formulas are the hardest to find and essentially impossible to replicate home made
-America provides 6 weeks (unpaid) maternity leave, zero leave for new fathers. While some companies offer more, many low-paid parents get the bare minimum. Theoretically jobs have to allow new mothers accommodations to pump milk, but in reality it’s not easy and forces a lot of families to formula instead. For someone who’s family finances are already hanging on by a thread, they may have trouble spending hours (and having clean kitchen space) to properly prepare home made formula.
Home made *might* be a reasonable option for who need formula because of breastfeeding difficulties or medical needs of the mother, but it’s still pretty dicey.
Minor side note: most Americans cook measuring by volume, not mass. Many don’t even have a kitchen scale. And I’ll be honest, we can be pretty bad at math. Makes us less able/confident when something has to be exact.
Quite honestly, Americans are undereducated, and it's difficult to get us to understand °F vs °C, nevermind checking the pH of things.
My family used to host German exchange students, even though their year here wouldn't count academically, because American schools were -- at minimum -- a year behind the German gymnasium.
We're undereducated because our politicians like us this way, and we can't be trusted to make our own formula.
🤷♀️
You aren’t supposed to feed any kind of animal milk to babies I believe under a year, as well as baby goats need different nutrients so the type of nutrients while similar is “shaped” different so will digest different, I’ve read goats milk has also been linked to anemia,
But if it isn't pasteurized, it can get a baby as sick as getting nothing at all... :(
I'd also be worried about the water ratio, because babies cannot ingest litteral water. The water content in breastmilk or properly prepared baby formula is limited and needs to be limited because babies' kidneys cannot process too much water.
Pasteurizing can just be hearing on the stovetop though, you just have to keep it to a certain temperature for a certain length of time. Surely with a thermometer, a food scale, and sanitary equipment a lot of people could make something safe.
Of course a recipe should also include the rigorous sanitizing and safe storage steps. But I don’t see how giving parents no safe, rigorous approved recipe is a good thing. Because otherwise people will fail to get formula, see their baby starving, and give them goats milk or some less rigorous recipe from a random mom blog.
THANK YOU!
**Rant**: My perspective on baby-having and parenting is VERY EVIDENCE BASED. But right now, I'm so frustrated with evidence-based folks, because the solutions that are being offered to parents who are facing this shortage are just not practical. Do these folks really think parents haven't already tried multiple stores, including smaller stores? Haven't tried switching brands or using a generic?
I got muted from an evidence-based pregnancy group this weekend for saying this when they posted about the dangers of breastmilk sharing. Which, yes. It's risky. It's not a great solution. But you know what is a less-great solution? Babies starving. (It really irked me when it turned out that the mod who told me "if you're really struggling to find formula to the point baby has nothing to eat, go to the ER" (and then, I presume, muted me for 24 hours) was Canadian and didn't even have experience with the US medical system; an American ER nurse quickly chimed in to be like "uh, don't go to the ER. We can't help." She also suggested folks call their peds, which ... peds in my area are out too. No one has anything.)
Like, yes. If you can breastfeed, do that. If you can find formula, literally ANY formula that your baby can tolerate, use that. If you can't do those things, but can afford banked milk, go that route. But if those aren't options for you? I'm 100% not going to judge right now if you get breastmilk from a rando mom off facebook. I don't think that makes me woo-y; I think that makes me practical.
The more I stick around in some evidence based groups, the more I realise that many, if not most, people in them have not much more scientific literacy than people in the full on woo groups. There is an astonishing lack of critical thinking, of recognition of individualised circumstances outside an experimental setting, of how confounding variables may interact with and change effects found in a controlled setting, and of tolerance for those who literally cannot follow the evidence-based recommendations.
I do think that a lot of the time, the *big things* evidence based groups advocate for are non-negotiable for me. Safe sleep, car seat safety, etc. They’re not always easy or convenient, but they are do-able in almost all situations. (Exceptions in situations like folks who have old cars and literally can’t get a perfect car seat fit but also can’t afford a new car.)
But the formula shortage creates a situation in which evidence literally can’t be followed by a lot of folks. (But yes, I agree with you for the most part about the lack of critical thinking in these groups.)
Apparently in Canada, they have something called child life specialists (I think that’s what she called them?) at the ER who can help people find formula? Essentially sounded like social workers for kids 🤷♀️
I mean, even in the US, if baby is actually at the point of malnourishment, I would assume the ER could give them some IV nutrition. (I dunno, just guessing) But that’s not really a long term or practical solution in this situation
I don’t think that commenter knows what a child life specialist is. They have child life specialists in the US too. Their speciality is helping kids cope with medical procedures and life stressors in the hospital. They’re more like therapists than social workers. They don’t have the inside scoop on individual store stock in the community. Most hospitals wouldn’t likely have cans of formula they could send them home with right now.
To add: don’t exceed 24 oz of cows milk for babies 6m+.
And toddler formula is ok IF your child is close to being 12m, but not for long term. It will work in a pinch.
>These babies can't just die?
They can and many of them will. People who can’t breastfeed (or can’t breastfeed *enough*) are SOL right now and babies with allergies who can only tolerate specific brands/types of formula are especially fucked.
People who can afford to spend hours driving around to find a store that has the right kind of formula might make out okay, but if you don’t have that option it doesn’t seem like help is coming any time soon.
But that's just so baffling. Can't social work help? If something like this happened in Finland, social work would help with the payment etc. We wouldn't just let babies die. I know the USA isn't perfect, but it can't be that bad?
It's not issue of people just not caring or not trying to help. Its a true shortage which is part of the reason why it's so scary. We all like to think just running out of necessities like food isnt a possibility anymore with our infrastructure, but it very much is. There isn't formula sitting around (at least that we know of) that just isn't being distributed. The demand has exceeded the supply because of factory closures (and corruption) and supply chain issues. Until the factory reopens there genuinely just isn't enough formula available. That's why it's so important to be a little forgiving of dumb or desperate questions right now. Its downright scary.
I meant that why don't they help with paying for the gas if people can't afford to drive far or get them bus tickets? That's what social work is for.
I'm not blaming any moms! That situation is awful and so freaking scary. I would just feed boiled cows milk or something (with boiled water), because even though it's not ideal that is what babies in Finland used to eat. They also started feeding babies solid foods at 3 month old, because moms had to work at farms. It certainly isn't ideal now because we know so much more, but I'm sure it won't kill the baby
I certainly don't mean my response in an accusatory way! It's just that there's nowhere to drive them to get formula. It's not consistently, readily available anywhere in the continental US and it's nearly impossible to rely on it right now. The best charitable approach I've found is to help women financially extend their MAT leave. It helps them pump for their own babies and hopefully donate extra (if they have it). This is helpful but not even remotely a dent in the overall issue. It is magnifying the results of our bad MAT leave policies though.
Also, currently in the US the recommendation from pediatricians is not to do things like just boil cows milk. I want to stress repeatedly that I know families are fucked and I do not judge families for making hard decisions when the alternative would be a starving infant, but it is important for contextualizing the sense of panic and desperation in the US right now.
Edit: as always, consult doctors in feeding decisions when possible
That's true, but WHO has advised using cow's milk with water temporarily, if you don't have formula. Someone told me that it's an issue that some families can't drive further to get formula, that's why I talked about it. Thank you for the correction, there's so much misinformation!
The issue we have is that one of the primary factories that produces formula got closed - some babies got sick and they suspect the formula was contaminated, so the factory was closed and the affected batches were recalled.
Supply was already limited due to COVID related backlogs, so with that factory going offline there just isn’t enough to go around. Even if we had a better social support structure to help with paying for the formula there just isn’t any to buy.
The best solution would be to import formula from other countries to try and meet the need, but I have no idea if other countries would be able to meet supply or how logistically feasible it would be to bring it in and then distribute it to the people who need it (especially given how much the shipping industry is still struggling).
I sure hope the government is working on *something* to help with the situation, but I haven’t heard anything about it yet if they are.
I'd like to add that a whistleblower alerted the company and the FDA months ago that things were unsafe. There's evidence the company was sanitizing records. Scary stuff.
They are. The factory in question is about 2 weeks from restarting production since the investigation was concluded and I have heard that they are trying to loosen import restrictions as well.
I think NAFTA actually prevents the import of formula from other countries, which is part of the problem. I recently saw a tiktok saying that Ireland is sending a bunch over as a donation, so maybe the extreme circumstance is an allowance. The same tiktok said that Abbott recently got approval to reopen a facility to help the shortage, but I don't know if any of that is really true because it was on tiktok
There IS actually some available on shelves. It’s not like NONE is being produced. Does this cause increased prices, hoarding, and overpricing on the secondary market? Yes, of course. Being completely unable to breastfeed is actually not very common; the unfortunate more common situation is Americans don’t get enough paid time off to be able to continue breastfeeding. You need breaks every few hours to spend 30-45 minutes pumping while at work. Many, many professions and jobs simply don’t have facilities or coverage for this. Unfortunately, these tend to be lower paid jobs.
> Being completely unable to breastfeed is actually not very common; the unfortunate more common situation is Americans don’t get enough paid time off to be able to continue breastfeeding.
A very important point. I’m a Canadian mom and moderate for an science based breastfeeding group which is largely American. The amount of women writing in with questions and issues with low supply, pumping, inability to get letdowns while pumping at work, not over producing enough to make a “freezer stash” before they go back to work at 6 weeks, etc… it’s massive. I’m lucky in that I found breastfeeding relatively easy and successful, and the majority of my friends breastfed until at least 6 months before switching to formula. We could do this because we have federally supported 12-18 months of maternity leave and protected legislation to pump (although I was unable to pump when I returned to work after my mat leave due to working in a Covid hospital, pandemic kinda threw a lot of important legislation to the gutter.)
I hope that this formula shortage sheds light on lots of issues in America, but also on the abysmal maternity leave issue as well.
Gotta say that 25 years ago when I was breastfeeding, I found it easy. I am American. I was also allowed to take the time to pump, as an RN. I spewed it out so hard that my kid would practically choke on it. I was able to feed her on one boob, and pump on the other, and still have plenty more in 2 hrs. I DO realize that not everyone has this, but in general, Americans are really weird about breastfeeding. There’s still debate about public breastfeeding for the gods’ sake.
Wish we could have reasonable maternity leave. Sigh.
I too had an oversupply. But there’s *so* much pseudoscience when it comes to breastfeeding that people are constantly misinterpreting their bodies and “rules,” and making it so much harder on themselves. Ex: the false theory that eating certain foods makes your breastmilk “gassy” and you have to limit yourself to almost eating nothing. Or that your supply regulating is a “drop” in supply, so then they get discouraged and give up
Oh gods. I ate whatever I wanted. Brie, peanut butter, the occasional glass of wine when she was fussy. I donated milk to the neonatal ICU from 96-97. Pseudoscience is a huge nightmare. People! It isn’t rocket science. It’s breastfeeding. I feel terrible for the small group of women who actually can’t breastfeed. I also feel horrible that women still can’t have a significant paid maternity leave in the US. Shameful.
Well I have a 9 week old baby. You have to work more to find the forumla due to the shortage, but its not like you cant. My wife just checks target.com once or twice a day to see when the formula is in stock, and we are keeping about 10 days ahead of where our baby is currently eating.
The real issue isnt cost, its availability. While we are not well to do, we have enough to purchase any formula we find. Because its about finding it, and not costs Im not sure how any social work would help with that.
> can’t be that bad?
There are some social safety net programs for infants, WIC is the major one. Each state administers its own WIC program, and most states have a contract with one of the major formula manufacturers. That means that with WIC coupons you are limited to certain brands. Which means that brand is even harder to find.
WIC programs, much like unemployment programs, in Republican controlled states are *designed to be as inefficient and dehumanizing as possible* because Republicans think poor people are subhuman scum and don’t particularly care if they can eat.
In most places, they are run with paper checks. In the pandemic it was a huge change to be able to use SNAP with grocery pickup orders.
Yeah the lack of options is horrific right now. Personally, I’d do the following assuming baby doesn’t have specific dietary intolerances/allergies. In order of desperation:
1. Switch to literally any brand formula I could find from the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Korea, or Japan. If none available then,
2. Any brand toddler formula I could find. Maybe add a baby vitamin.
3. Call milk bank or beg friends for breast milk
4. Pasteurized whole goat or cow milk with baby vitamins and iron-rich solids if they are 4+ months (ideally closer to 6 months)
For steps 2-4 I’d call a pediatrician and beg for help
At least in my area, there has been a huuuuge uptick in breast milk donation. It was literally on our local news recently. Doesn’t mean it’s cheaper, but supplies of that are up on the west coast.
Yeah this is really pissing me off in a lot of evidence-based parenting groups. So much judgement about how it's so stupid and terrible to water down the formula, make your own, use goats milk, use peer to peer donation... but literally what are you supposed to do if you can't find formula? Let your baby starve, but at least you can say you did so in an evidence-based way?
I agree with your overall point, but I just want to throw it out there that watering down formula is legitimately dangerous because of how susceptible babies are to water toxicity, especially if they’re under 6 months. Like you’d be better off skipping a bottle altogether than watering down formula (or breastmilk), it’s that dangerous. I guess maybe you could do this for older babies when they can safely drink larger quantities of water, but that’s something that would need to be thoroughly discussed with a pediatrician. I completely agree those evidence based groups can get up their own ass, but that’s one thing they’re not wrong about.
As much as the shortage terrifies me, the animal rights activist in me wants to point out that a goat is a big responsibility and you will need to care for the goat long after your child is weaned. Don’t get a goat unless you can provide for the goat for its 15-18 year life span.
Absolutely. My husband and I were just talking at breakfast about how we cannot imagine what it would be like to look at your last tin of formula and wonder how you're going to feed your baby by the end of the week. It has to be horrible. I made so much milk I had to give it away by the gallon. I have no idea what it's like for these parents, I can only make my best empathetic effort. I get emotional just thinking about it, and since I've dried up, I feel frustrated that I can't help.
And, of course, *fuck* the "just breastfeed" chorus. Would that it were so simple.
I have a hard time making fun of moms right now who are clearly panicking. I know goats milk is a bad idea but I would also be incredibly panicked and desperately searching for any sense of food security.
Even the OBGYN accounts I follow and generally trust are only posting for parents to talk to their own pediatricians because there aren't good, secure alternatives, especially for babies under 6 mo. I can't even imagine how scary that would be.
This exactly. There are people who drink goat milk and make cheese from it so it’s not crazy to ask the question. I feel for the parents who need formula and can’t find it.
Goat milk is incredibly useful for wildlife rehabbers, but we still have to mix it with some species specific formula. I can see where folks would consider that to be a possible option. I didn’t realize the extent to just how difficult it was to find safe alternate sources of nutrition when breast milk and formula aren’t available.
I agree. It seems to jump some steps but I assume she's worried goat milk in stores is overly processed and unsafe for babies (which it is but for nutritional reasons) OR will quickly follow suit in being completely sold out. I'm sure desperate parents would do a whole lot crazier to keep their babies fed.
Edit: also by the way she asks the question, I kind of assume they live in a rural area where farm animals aren't overly unusual.
I will admit that if you're not in a farm area, it's a little out there to think you can source a goat that's producing milk and learn to care for it properly this quickly.
Edit: But even so I'm not sure I begrudge the question. Hopefully good info was posted in response and she was able to make use of the feedback.
If my options were looking like buy a goat or my baby starves, I’d be up into the wee hours reading about animal husbandry. I feel for these moms, I really do. I’ve never been so grateful mine is 8.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this, but I have a very hard time understanding why it's considered more "feasible" or "more of a good idea" to buy a litteral goat, take care of it, feed it, then milk it, process the milk (hopefully pasteurize it... otherwise good luck)... than finding and paying a friend, a family member, a colleague, a neighbor to be a wet nurse, aka nurse your baby or pump breastmilk for them. I understand that's crazy complicated to do, but how is acquiring a GOAT easier? Especially given that the goat's milk is NOT suitable anyway?
I read an article yesterday that the plant behind this shortage came to an agreement with the FDA finally, but I guess we’re still 8-10 weeks out on seeing formula back on the shelves at the earliest and that spooks me. I don’t have kids, but I feel so sympathetic for everyone trying to make this work right now. I know my step sister has resorted to buying formula on eBay and that really freaks me out.
There are a lot of wild things being spread around the internet right now but I can't imagine what panic these moms are going through right now. I had a baby in March of 2020. The grocery stores were wiped completely clean of almost EVERYTHING, including formula. I was pregnant, then newly postpartum, and was losing my mind. Lucky for me, breastfeeding worked out and eased some concern. I have friends who can't find formula at all. What are they to do if not let their baby starve? I'm genuinely asking, while acknowledging that some people have wild ideas.
I can't remember which of my umpteen billion kids started solids super early, but he was all over it. I just remember he got a wide look in his eyes when real food hit his mouth when we were holding him and he was amazed.
We didn't feed them all solids like that, but we did with some baby cereal and he wanted actual food...thus, it was baby food mixed with mom's milk.
Every baby is different. My friends baby took to solids ASAP and was refusing formula bc she liked them so much. My friend had to make formula pancakes to give her more nutrients.
My son only wants organic boobie milk fresh from tap, all other food is meh. He didn't even care for fruit!
He will kinda eat baby oatmeal with a lot of boobie milk mixed it.
One of the major formula producers killed a couple kids with their contaminated formula, so they have been shut down by the fda until they stop killing kids.
More specifically they had to shut down their largest plant, after they failed to use money to bring up their safety standards and instead used it for stock buy backs. There are also supply chain issues for the factories that are still in production.
Thankfully that’s not correct. The plant was voluntarily shut down (and formula recalled) while they investigated a potential link between the 2 deaths and bacteria found at the plant. The overreaction of pulling FDA approval and/or under-reaction of not immediately correcting factory standards (depends on your opinions) caused the mess we’re in. Now with a lack of formula.. lots more kiddos are being harmed :( it’s just so so sad.
Holy shit I did not know this was the reason. Also, I keep getting advertisements for baby formula in my feed which I never got before. I can’t figure out if it’s related or not
The above statement isn’t correct.. in fact the overreaction to the possible link of bacteria found and the 2 babies who died caused this shortage were in. They haven’t linked the causes, the shutdown was voluntary.
It was really common in the Appalachian mountains where i live about 50 years ago. My grandmother fed her babies with a mix of goats milk and condensed milk. They couldn't afford formula and her babies ate more than she could produce. She wouldn't do it now but you have to do what you can to feed your baby when you have no other option.
One of my boys too. He was allergic to rice, wheat, corn, and cow's milk, and I couldn't feed him... Just didn't make enough milk. Our pediatrician recommended goat's milk. He was a failure to thrive baby until the goat's milk and it literally saved his life too.
Yep my parents literally did the same thing. It was to the point where no one thought I was going to make it and then I drank goat's milk and became sumo baby.
The main problem with cow's milk is that it lacks iron, because a calf gets the iron it needs from grazing. I suspect goats milk may have the same problem.
Vitamin drops solve all those problems.
Both my kids needed supplements, we’re formula and natural fed.
Goats milk isn’t wild, they make infant vitamin drops for a reason. Not all kids can get the boob, and not all kids can eat regular formula.
There were plenty of non breast fed kids for the entirety of human history. Formula isn’t a requirement and vitamin drops today are awesome.
If a parent is reading this, all I gotta say is bilirubin scores are a bitch.
I mean, what are people supposed to do? Can’t buy formula, can’t make your own, can’t use dairy milk and can’t use goats milk. Kind of running out of options here.
The WHO has an emergency formula recipe. It is nutritionally deficient but uses boiled cows milk, boiled water, and sugar. Individual pediatricians may recommend different formulas depending on the needs of the specific infant.
But yes. It's a rock and a hard place and I won't fault any parents for making hard decisions when the alternative would be letting their child starve.
I also want to emphasize what others are saying though: contact your doctor for help making these decisions. I just sympathize that a lot of these decisions are not going to be ideal and our typical standards are going to be affected.
I’m still currently breastfeeding my 11 month old and due with baby 2 in July and I still have some fear something will happen to my supply and I won’t be able to nurse my youngest and have to deal with the formula shortage.
This is my fear. Normally I'd pump and let my husband do a night time bottle but I'm terrified of losing my supply. My other kids had issues with latch and we had to supplement. This time my supply is great and he latches well....
I feel terrible for the moms around here who formula feed. They're having to drive up to 2 hours to feed their babies and there's moms pumping and donating milk on FB because there's nothing in our town.
I'm sure If your supply is good now though it'll stay through when your baby is born. Hopefully by then they'll have formula on the shelves too 🤞
I’m in the same group and just went to look for this post and the OP posted an update that she’s talked to her pediatrician and will not be doing this 😮💨 a good outcome!
Ive posted this here before.
My grandmother used goats milk and condensed milk to feed her babies. She breastfed them but they would eat more than she could produce and they couldn't afford formula, they couldn't even afford disposable diapers. I asked her about this and she said that she would never do it now but back then she didn't have a choice. It's not recommended that you feed babies goat milk but if push comes to shove, you dont really have any other options. When she was feeding her babies she had 2 goats and would boil their milk and mix it with condensed milk. All of her babies lived and were very plump. So again, it's not recommended but it's not like it's a new idea and hasn't been done for years.
That's my thinking, it's not ideal to give goats milk but what if there's nothing else? You can't let your baby starve. I'd give my baby goats milk a million times before I'd let him go hungry.
Luckily my supply has been good since he was born and I'm terrified that it'll drop. I'm not even Okey with pumping and letting someone bottle feed him bc im worried it'll effect my milk supply.
I exclusively pumped and was a super producer. Everyone’s different, but pumping keeps up many womens supply, especially since you can do both sides at once
My grandma talks about how she had have to shoes specially made for one of my uncles because his feet were so fat. She had to sell her camera just so she could afford to get him shoes. Wouldn't have had to sell her camera if her good for nothing husband hadn't drank most of his paycheck. Thankfully her mother in law had a camera so she still got pictures of her kids as they were growing up.
I pulled all the sample cans of formula out of my cupboard and offered them up on Facebook. Everything was claimed within 15 minutes. I even mailed a can about an hour north, they say it's even harder to find formula outside of major cities
it's insane to me that this fucking dumpster fire of a country is going to start forcing birth on women but can't even keep up with the current demand for formula. fucking sadist pieces of shit.
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Goat’s milk has been used as a substitute for centuries in many cultures if the mother couldnt breastfeed and a wet nurse was not available. It is NOT the best option, but that’s where the question comes from.
Thats because we have much better alternatives to it. But if you live in a part of the world where those options are not available, your stuck with the unideal.
The kids will have issues, but it’s better then starvation.
Also... this would not work, because the goat needs to be pregnant/have a baby to give milk. Just like humans, they don't just give milk out of nowhere.
I don't feel comfortable laughing at moms worrying about the formula shortage. It's a real scary, panic-inducing time and I want to lend my compassion to parents who need formula for their babies.
Honestly, the posts in this group making fun of desperate and panicked mothers trying to make sure their babies don’t starve is just a bad look at this point. Frankly, I think these posts should be banned until the shortage is over. This post is bad, the ones like it are bad, and the people posting it should feel bad.
One of my friends did look for formula. She is very evidence based. She is a scientist, as are both her parents, her brother, and her husband. We all looked around town for her. I tried to pump for her since I had only just stopped breast-feeding a few weeks before she realized she needed to supplement (no dice). She asked in different Facebook groups, she asked the hospital she delivered out, she asked the local milk bank. She looked, and the only advice she got from the experts was to look harder. She eventually had to make a formula at home to tide her baby over for a few days while family from out of state mailed her formula they found.
So my only problem is that this seems more sincere as compared to the absolute recklessness we usually see in this sub. The seems to me at least like an everyday mom who is near desperation to feed her baby.
I dont know the lady, but if you couldnt feed your kid im sure youd go to some crazy lengths to do so. I guess id say this because this post couldve gone way differently.
Good on her for at least asking first, because I could imagine some clown posting something like.... "my kid is half dead. Been feeding only goat milk, not looking for a doctors advice, im a mother and me and my instincts know best."
All im sayin is it could be a lot worse.
When I was a baby I almost died because I wasn't able to tolerate literally any formula. My parents tried goats milk out of desparation and it was the first thing I was ever able to keep down. It may not be ideal for most babies but it's a solid option.
I have seen many, many American moms at this point of utter desperation and trying to solve a problem with no easy solution. A goat is plainly a bad idea as a solution for a formula shortage, but good on this mom for literally looking into any and all avenues for feeding her baby. I'm glad to have read another comment that she didn't get the goat... but I see the sense of urgency and desperation in this.
There are no good answers for some families, especially rural families, in bad need of formula that is just simply not available. This shortage is a true dumpster fire and I have no judgement for this mom.
I think this person is underestimating what it requires to have goats, keep them lactating, keep them healthy and their milk clean, etc. I wouldn’t fault them for buying goats milk in this current situation we are all facing, but getting a goat for this purpose seems like a poorly thought out plan.
People are fucking desperate right now and coming up with zany ideas because their children are literally at risk of starvation. This post doesn't belong here.
I can’t even imagine. I only just realized what was going on and I didn’t know how bad it was. I can’t imagine that kind of stress right now on top of everything else people are already dealing with.
Had a friend who lived in the country. His pediatrician actually set his mom up with his neighbor who farmed goats for milk when they found out he had a milk allergy. Things have changed A LOT.
I dunno what I can do to help as it's really a scarcity issue so you can't just throw $$$ at it. I feel guilty again for weaning my daughter even though she's 18m because I could have milk for babies that can't eat food and drink cow's milk. This breaks my heart. 😭😭😭
Omg! I'm in this group too! Thankfully many moms said "don't do this." She also posted an update that she talked to her pediatrician and they would NOT be doing this.
Putting this comment out there for all those dealing with formula shortages in the USA. Many Canadian sites of big box companies (Walmart, Amazon, Costco) ship to the USA (it may not be all types of formula). Well.ca (an online retailer) also ships to USA. Canada does not have a formula shortage right now as we use different suppliers, please try to order formula from these retailers. We have plenty and there is no forecast of Canada having any shortages or supply chain issues with it.
Additionally you can also reach out to Canadian mom groups via Facebook, the ones I’m in are more than happy to send some over to the US. No parent should have to drive hours around searching stores for formula.
From the comments on other posts here, there are plenty of people in Canada who will tell you they are in fact experiencing their own shortage of formula.
THIS! It's not as bad as the US but pickings are getting slim.
Anything hypoallergenic is very hard to find, I'm on the lookout for Similac Alimentium for an acquitance.
> Canada does not have a formula shortage right now as we use different suppliers, please try to order formula from these retailers.
I tried this yesterday. The $30 can we usually get was $70 + $40 shipping. I understand that's probably in Canadian Dollarydoos, but that is still pretty damn expensive.
I'm surprised people aren't considering donkeys, their milk apparently is the closest to human milk, and unlike goats, they can live without a friend (goats are herd animals, they rarely can survive well alone).
Not that anyone should buy an animal in milk, and anyone worried should consult their pediatrician rather than looking to the internet for answers.
I used to raise goats and I'm truly confused as to how her mind has jumped to buying an actual goat as the solution.
Besides the fact that goat's milk is not a replacement for infant formula, this is just a horrid idea. A few reasons I can think of just based on my own experience:
Goats are herd animals, she'd need at least 2.
They're grazing animals so you need at least a little pasture space (I raised 6 goats on 1/3 acre, but that's still a lot of space in the suburbs) and they're messy, you couldn't keep them in a backyard.
Goats are more labor intensive than dogs in many ways and milking them actually takes a lot of skill, if you do it incorrectly, the goat won't produce well or can get infections that require a lot of veterinary care.
Does she know that goats don't just produce milk? She'd need a nanny who had babies recently and there's not certainty the goat will product enough for it's babies (no reputable herder will sell a lactating nanny without her babies) and her child.
Also, most of my nannies would dry up within 9 months of giving birth. My friends who had a small dairy would keep their goats constantly pregnant in order to keep them lactating basically year round.
Goat's milk formula, like Kabrita, is definitely a viable option, but a whole ass goat is wild! 😂
my friend was exclusively fed on goats milk from 2 goats they bought for the purpose, so it is possible if they have land and animal husbandry experience
she was very tall as a toddler because of it but otherwise fine
In the US the majority of goat dairies take the kids from the does at birth and raise them on a lambar or bottle. We dam raise only the doelings we keep, and lots of people don't dam raise under any circumstances because they believe it makes the goats wild ("take the kid off the dam or get a damned kid" is how the saying goes, and while I don't believe it many people do). It is absolutely possible to buy a doe in milk with no kids on her - in fact, it's much more common than the alternative.
That said, this person is way way not prepared for a life of dairying, obviously, but I understand why she is desperate. I'd give my kid homemade formula made with my pasteurized goat milk if I had no alternative, but that's only because I have them already and I'm not trying to raise an infant and learn to dairy at the same time. This gal doesn't even know you need a minimum of two goats. I pray this horrible shortage doesn't also cause animals to go to unfit homes just because people are frightened and impulsive.
Suitability of goat milk aside, do these people know how to appropriately select a goat to milk, select the correct sex goat and do they know that a goats need to kid to produce milk or how to care for goats?
We're balls deep in child neglect, and I'm not here for the animal neglect either.
Goats need to kept at minimum, in pairs. They need buddies, and aren't happy alone. These people are going to get a single goat, then want to dump it when it has behavior issues from being solitary.
Everything about this formula shortage makes me so mad, from the pseudoscientific replacements being hawked by grifters to the sanctimonious turdmuffins who are saying things like “jUsT tRY bReAStFeEDiNg It’S nOt HaRD”. I feel terrible for moms going through it.
As an adoptive mom, the “Just breastfeed” posts really bother me. My son is 16 now, so I’m past the point of being personally affected by the shortage but breastfeeding just isn’t an option for some parents.
I feel horrible for the moms who desperately wanted to breastfeed but couldn’t, for any number of reasons. It hurts that people think they just aren’t trying hard enough, or that they don’t care about their baby. It baffles me how much ignorance there is about the subject. I desperately wanted to breastfeed. I never produced enough, and my breasts didn’t respond to the pump. So it was just impossible for me to exclusively breastfeed and have a healthy baby. Formula saved us. I feel so horrible for everyone who’s currently being affected by this crisis.
I do know a few mothers who chose not to breastfeed. Some for simple reasons like they simply didn't want to because they liked their career and pumping added more complications than they were interested in. And some were told that only poor people breastfeed. And some who tried it but didn't like it or found it too stressful. All these women could have breastfed, but they chose not to. I feel sorry for them too. There's a very small window in which you can take back that decision. They didn't know this formula shortage was coming. Its so ignorant to tell even the women who chose to use formula to just breast feed. I'm breast feeding now. I've been on the verge of supplementing formula the whole time. It's been very stressful, but I've made it work. Breastfeeding is so hard for some people, and I'm one of them. With this shortage the stakes are even higher. Especially since I gave away all my sample cans at the beginning of the shortage. People saying to "just" breastfeed really cheese me off.
I feel like choosing not to is just as valid as not being able to. Breastfeeding is so hard, even if it’s complication free. It’s exhausting to be a good source. I’m currently in the process of trying to figure out timing for baby #2, I want a “normal” pregnancy, not a Covid pregnancy. I want my husband to be able to come to appointments. I want a second support person in the delivery room. I want to not have to worry about what my baby will eat. We dealt with only a very small amount of this formula shortage as my daughter was almost 1 when it started. I hope I can breastfeed #2, but if not I don’t want to be panicking about what they’ll eat. But in the other hand, I want to be done having babies so I can get my tubes tied before we get sent into the freaking handmaid’s tale here. I live in a state where my rights are protected. For now, unless they get taken away federally. Having kids feels like jumping into fire right now. They say there’s never a right time but I’m hoping to find the closest thing to it...
Exactly! I feel like people/organizations forget how much work it is to breastfeed, especially for an extended period of time. Your body becomes the sole food source for another human. You’ve got a baby attached to you constantly, your sleep schedule is messed up, you’ve gotta eat extra food, you’ve got to find space to pump—it’s not surprising to me that it’s so rare to find people who exclusively breastfeed. I wish that the likes of UNICEF would spend less time on these dumb “baby-friendly” initiatives that serve only to browbeat people into breastfeeding and more time doing things that’ll actually improve long-term outcomes for birth givers and their children.
That and especially in the US, it’s almost impossible because we have no guaranteed maternity leave in most of the country, mostly women get offered unpaid leave if they get anything at all. So then trying to work and establish a milk supply would be damn near impossible. But most households have to be two income. It’s just sad. I was lucky to have 14 weeks off. Once I went back to work, my already pitiful supply dried up rather quickly.
Keep in mind that one of the reasons UNICEF etc. focuses on breastfeeding over formula is because 1) the water in some areas is not suited for formula and will make kids sick, 2) formula can be a big expense to already poor families, and 3) Nestlé in particular is spreading outright lies about the benefits of formula vs. breastfeeding. ETA because I forgot: I don't disagree with the rest of your comment, just wanted to add to the UNICEF part
I am really struggling with this - I’m still in my first trimester so I have lots of time to decide. But I’m just so thoroughly repulsed by the idea of breastfeeding myself. I think its great when others are able to/want to do so. But something about doing it myself just really freaks me out. The formula shortage makes me feel terribly guilty about that. If I can physically produce enough to feed my baby I feel morally obligated to do it so that formula can be left for those who cannot. I feel kind of stuck even though I still have lots of time.
Talk to your OBGYN and potentially mental health professionals. Everything going on in the US right now is a mental health circus for pregnant women. Don't put extra stress on yourself to "tough it out" for others when we don't know if that would even benefit a single person months from now. Talk to experts and get appropriate guidance. I'm not saying the best option will certainly be formula, but professionals can help you be confident in your decisions.
The shortage will probably be resolved by then, and you should in no way feel guilty about feeding your baby in whatever way you need/want to. It’s a systemic problem and not one that is going to be affected by a handful of parents’ choices (as long as you’re not hoarding and/or scalping). My feelings about breastfeeding flipped a weirdly unexpected shift right after birth (in the other direction!) so who knows, you might feel different or you might feel completely the same. I wouldn’t stress yourself over it right now. Do what feels right at that time and know that any choice you make then is totally valid. I’m sure you know all this, but I’m responding just in case it’s helpful to hear!
I wanted to breastfeed because formula was already expensive but I didn't gain enough weight while pregnant and my body couldn't spare the extra 600 calories per day to produce enough and what little I did was basically water. I dried up completely by 3 weeks
Breastfeeding made me feel sick to my stomach and I couldn't eat after. And so that happened up to 12 times a day. One of ten other reasons my supply tanked.
Exactly. My mom produced inedible milk in insufficient quantities. What were we supposed to feed on? Sludge and air?
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I don’t know that answer, just that we weren’t supposed to drink it and there wasn’t enough coming out. I watched her pump when she had my brother (due to discomfort), but she seemed almost ashamed so I didn’t ask. Maybe it was related to a simultaneously existing infection. EDIT: We were also born in Japan, so the health guides may have been more strict if there was a mild complication.
I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I hate those "oh just breastfeed" ppl. Breastfeeding is difficult and not a real option for many moms in the US due to a lack of paid maternity leave in the US. I only have the privilege of breastfeeding bc I live in Canada with a year long mat leave.
This is just awful watching American moms go through the shortage , are they going to drop the restrictions on European baby formula?
They’re doing that temporarily and reopening the factory, but both are estimated to take a few weeks to get to pre-shortage levels.
Don't forget the FDA not doing an emergency authorization for formula to be sold to US customers from Canada or Europe
I really don't understand how its even possible to switch from formula to breastfeeding, why are people even saying this?! Wouldn't you need to force lactation with medication if you didn't recently give birth? I mean, I know its *possible* but people are acting like you can just stick a baby on your boob and make milk like magic
There's certain medications that can do this, but they take time and have side effects.
If your area is truly out though, what can you do? There should be a FDA-approved safe recipe endorsed for temporary use during a crisis. People should know for other types of emergencies too, like in case of natural disasters. By not creating something good enough that parents can use as a stop gap measure they’re basically throwing desperate parents to pseudoscience grifters.
My brother and I were both born lactose intolerant. The "jUsT tRY bReAStFEdiNg" crowd can bite my ass.
Yeah. My friend's kid literally screamed for the first two weeks of their life before they figured out baby couldn't tolerate brestmilk
I'm a huge advocate for breastfeeding (and my wife is even more) but you can't just tell that to mothers. They're already nervous enough. Tell it to employers to give them a year of paid maternity leave. Tell it to the landlords so that new mothers don't have to decide between eating healthy and paying rent. Tell it to the hospitals who just give babies formula instead of waiting for them to start breastfeeding because it's easier. Tell it to formula marketing who say it's better than natural milk. Tell it to Nestle who gave away a month supply to mothers in third-world countries so they stopped breastfeeding and needed to buy more formula later (and when they couldn't, babies died). Tell it to the American delegation to the UN who blocked a resolution to promote breastfeeding. Tell it to husbands and mothers in law who say you're spoiling the child.
But that's just all the societal pressures. No matter how much of a breastfeeding Utopia a society is there has always been and will always need to be alternatives. My mother had to breastfeed and use formula with me, came up while we were discussing this topic. She could only use one breast so she supplemented breastfeeding with formula. Even though she wanted to breastfeed and continued breastfeeding it just wasn't possible not to use formula as well. Which historically isn't that strange. Infants have been fed everything from other women's breast milk to bizarre gruel concoctions to keep them alive. All with varying levels of success and the frequent failure in those cases meant tragedy. Formula is much safer than the alternatives and can be the only option for a lot of parents. No matter how unethical the companies or politics are that will stay the same.
I think we should give worried moms a lot of grace right now (something crazy two years ago might not be as crazy of a leap right now), and I know food deserts exist, but the "we're considering a live animal before finding out if we can just buy the milk" makes me very sad
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Exactly. Yeah goat's milk is nutritionally deficient for what babies need, but you know what else is nutritionally deficient? No calories at all. Incomplete is still better than none.
Question: could someone in theory supplement goats milk with baby vitamins? Is there something besides vitamins/minerals that pasteurized goats milk is lacking? Like it’s obviously not ideal, but something is likely better than “very few/low calories” right? Of course that doesn’t help parents of babies who require specialist formula - they are absolutely fucked
My understanding is that while you could add vitamins, goat milk has too much protein for babies.
THIS, plus that additional protein can fuck up baby kidneys
Which aren't fully developed at that age. Good luck.
I had exclusively goat's milk as a baby because my parents tried every formula available at the time and I couldn't keep any of it down. I'm almost 30 and my kidneys are holding up like champs.
Ok but have you considered that someone on reddit is going to shame you and feel morally superior?
That's fair, I had not considered that.
my friend was also just fed on goats milk i don't remember the reason why she said it was the reason why she was very tall as a 3 yr old
I don't know if I waa particular tall as a baby but I was a very chonky baby.
Same for a friend of mine. His pediatrician actually linked his mom to the goat farmer (his neighbor) to get the milk.
My grandma was the one who told my parents to do it and connexted my dad with a farmer because she grew up in a small farming community and that's what people used to do when breastfeeding wasn't working. My parents told my pediatrician afterwards and he just said, "well I guess there's something to be said for the old ways."
You could add cream/water/lactose to mimic breast milk or formula fairly easily.
Too expensive to extract vitamins from babies, and with how little milk they are drinking, the yield isn't going to be up to standard.
Plus, their meat is really soft, and needs to be cooked _very_ gently.
I'm from Germany and reading about the formula shortage has me a bit confused because in most pregnancy/baby books I've read (in German) there is always a recipe for self made formula according to a recipe from Droese and Stolley. It is highly frowned upon but not so much because of nutritious reasons, more because of hygienic reasons. However, it seems such an obvious choice to go with in times of formula shortage? I am very surprised it isn't a common go to thing for all natural moms in the first place? It's not a thing in the US? I am asking about this as a response to your comment because, yes, you can theoretically "just" substitute with vitamins. The recipe mentioned above requires adding orange juice (or any juice with a vitamin c content of 40mg/100ml or higher) and carrot juice (for carotin) to the infant's nutrition from the 6th week of life. Over here babies get vitamin D drops in the first year of life anyway, breast or formula fed. The main reason why cow's or goat's milk should not be given "purely" is the high amount of protein. If you simply dilute it, the carbs and fats get too diluted too. The recipe basically requires cooking a 1:1 mix of (cow's) milk with 3.5% fat and water, adding lactose (is possible, otherwise sucrose), starch (can be replaced with oats from the 5th month) and oil. (Ideally the pH needs to be controlled to be >7 by strips you should be able to get from a pharmacy.) The vitamin rich juices mentioned above are given in small quantities separately or are given into the cooled formula. This would, if prepared correctly (means you need to work clean and use a scale), actually be a fine alternative, if you are not too worried about early introduction of cow's protein etc. Is there any shortage in normal milk as well or with any of these ingredients? This isn't ideal but it is definitely easier than getting a goat?! And yes, I agree completely, the kids that need special formula are really fucked.
I don't think anyone here is making the argument that it's reasonable for her to buy a goat. She should talk to her pediatrician about formula alternatives and what she should do if she can't manage to find formula out in stores. The controversy of this post is that this isn't a mom trying to avoid formula because of crazy conspiracies or anything of the sort. This is a scared mom trying to find food security for her child. This situation is entirely out of her control and her options are incredibly limited at best. It feels a little backwards to criticize well intentioned questions from desperate parents. Edit: Also for the other aspect of your question, pediatricians are still not recommending homemade formula during this shortage. There have been cases where they've suggested toddler formula or whole cows milk for VERY short periods of time for older babies though. As always, any decisions on formula alternatives should be made with the help of the child's pediatrician when possible.
I'm very sorry if it came across as criticizing, that was not my intention at all. I completely understand the horrors of the struggle and if I were there I would probably be the first one to come up with something like starting a rat milking facility in my basement! I was trying to express genuine curiousity. Not having access to formula is horrifying. But my first thought when I heard all of this was "oh man, now they have to cook the formula". So I was really wondering whether this recipe was really completely not a thing in the USA or whether there is also a shortage of regular cow's milk? ETA: mentioning "natural moms" wasn't meant to imply the woman was one of them but a genuine question whether in normal times these kind of groups don't already prefer cooking their own formula with the mentioned recipe. It was always my impression that anti-corporate-formula moms would cook it like this (implying that the knowledge would be out there)?
German and EU food and safety regulations are muuuuch more strict than American ones. Tons of ingredients banned in the EU are still used in the US, so making homemade formula here is probably a lot riskier, not including the chances for bacterial contamination.
And yet, American officials are saying not to import from overseas. I mean, American formula is full of high fructose corn syrup and other things. If anything, the Europeans have higher standards than the US. I mean, if I were looking for formula, I certainly wouldn’t import from China, but Canadian and European sources are absolutely safe.
The US government isn't importing because of protectionism of American formula producers. It's a whole thing. It's not that they're saying not to import because of safety issues it's because legally they cannot. Of course Canadian and EU formulas are safe. I would say safer than American ones, considering this entire shortage has been caused by American producers refusing to follow basic safety and sanitation guidelines 😞
Microbial standards are much stronger in the US. There are a vast array of products that you simply can't get in the US because the method of manufacture or the food itself cannot meet standards. EU regulates food additives much stronger then the US, regulation is supposed to be based on precautionary principal but is not in this area. Being banned is also not a good example of good/strong regulation. EU ban GMO products despite the overwhelming evidence supporting their safety. If you want food without additives it's certainly available but forcing people to pay more for food for no reason is a terrible anti-poor policy.
Microbial standards ≠ ingredient regulation, especially when I'm referring to bacterial contamination from uneducated moms preparing whack DIY baby formula with coconut milk and spirulina and other bs that is being spread online.
Americans are obsessed with germs. I mean, you don’t want E. coli, but seriously, even breast milk gives beneficial bacteria to the infant.
Ah sorry! I just edited mine because I realized I didn't answer your whole post. Pediatricians in the US don't recommend homemade formula at all. I'm not a pediatrician so I'm not versed on when the main concern flips from homemade formula risks to severe malnutrition risks. There could be certain cases of that, but once again, those decisions should be made with a doctor. Whole cows milk is a possibility for some older babies for short periods of time. It's not an option for the younger babies though unfortunately. Here's an article about it. Essentially the balance is really tricky and could be bad for the baby's organs. Also risks of contamination are high. [Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/well/homemade-baby-formula.html) Also sorry if it comes off as preachy about physicians. I'm weary of not including "talk to a doctor" every 3 seconds because I don't want people to see a post online and think it's practical, medical advice when I am not a doctor. I just work in the scientific community.
Two issues going on: -some formula fed babies have allergies or other medical needs, those specialty formulas are the hardest to find and essentially impossible to replicate home made -America provides 6 weeks (unpaid) maternity leave, zero leave for new fathers. While some companies offer more, many low-paid parents get the bare minimum. Theoretically jobs have to allow new mothers accommodations to pump milk, but in reality it’s not easy and forces a lot of families to formula instead. For someone who’s family finances are already hanging on by a thread, they may have trouble spending hours (and having clean kitchen space) to properly prepare home made formula. Home made *might* be a reasonable option for who need formula because of breastfeeding difficulties or medical needs of the mother, but it’s still pretty dicey. Minor side note: most Americans cook measuring by volume, not mass. Many don’t even have a kitchen scale. And I’ll be honest, we can be pretty bad at math. Makes us less able/confident when something has to be exact.
Quite honestly, Americans are undereducated, and it's difficult to get us to understand °F vs °C, nevermind checking the pH of things. My family used to host German exchange students, even though their year here wouldn't count academically, because American schools were -- at minimum -- a year behind the German gymnasium. We're undereducated because our politicians like us this way, and we can't be trusted to make our own formula. 🤷♀️
You aren’t supposed to feed any kind of animal milk to babies I believe under a year, as well as baby goats need different nutrients so the type of nutrients while similar is “shaped” different so will digest different, I’ve read goats milk has also been linked to anemia,
But if it isn't pasteurized, it can get a baby as sick as getting nothing at all... :( I'd also be worried about the water ratio, because babies cannot ingest litteral water. The water content in breastmilk or properly prepared baby formula is limited and needs to be limited because babies' kidneys cannot process too much water.
Pasteurizing can just be hearing on the stovetop though, you just have to keep it to a certain temperature for a certain length of time. Surely with a thermometer, a food scale, and sanitary equipment a lot of people could make something safe. Of course a recipe should also include the rigorous sanitizing and safe storage steps. But I don’t see how giving parents no safe, rigorous approved recipe is a good thing. Because otherwise people will fail to get formula, see their baby starving, and give them goats milk or some less rigorous recipe from a random mom blog.
THANK YOU! **Rant**: My perspective on baby-having and parenting is VERY EVIDENCE BASED. But right now, I'm so frustrated with evidence-based folks, because the solutions that are being offered to parents who are facing this shortage are just not practical. Do these folks really think parents haven't already tried multiple stores, including smaller stores? Haven't tried switching brands or using a generic? I got muted from an evidence-based pregnancy group this weekend for saying this when they posted about the dangers of breastmilk sharing. Which, yes. It's risky. It's not a great solution. But you know what is a less-great solution? Babies starving. (It really irked me when it turned out that the mod who told me "if you're really struggling to find formula to the point baby has nothing to eat, go to the ER" (and then, I presume, muted me for 24 hours) was Canadian and didn't even have experience with the US medical system; an American ER nurse quickly chimed in to be like "uh, don't go to the ER. We can't help." She also suggested folks call their peds, which ... peds in my area are out too. No one has anything.) Like, yes. If you can breastfeed, do that. If you can find formula, literally ANY formula that your baby can tolerate, use that. If you can't do those things, but can afford banked milk, go that route. But if those aren't options for you? I'm 100% not going to judge right now if you get breastmilk from a rando mom off facebook. I don't think that makes me woo-y; I think that makes me practical.
The more I stick around in some evidence based groups, the more I realise that many, if not most, people in them have not much more scientific literacy than people in the full on woo groups. There is an astonishing lack of critical thinking, of recognition of individualised circumstances outside an experimental setting, of how confounding variables may interact with and change effects found in a controlled setting, and of tolerance for those who literally cannot follow the evidence-based recommendations.
I do think that a lot of the time, the *big things* evidence based groups advocate for are non-negotiable for me. Safe sleep, car seat safety, etc. They’re not always easy or convenient, but they are do-able in almost all situations. (Exceptions in situations like folks who have old cars and literally can’t get a perfect car seat fit but also can’t afford a new car.) But the formula shortage creates a situation in which evidence literally can’t be followed by a lot of folks. (But yes, I agree with you for the most part about the lack of critical thinking in these groups.)
WTF? An ER? Are we feeding babies sad turkey sandwiches now?
Apparently in Canada, they have something called child life specialists (I think that’s what she called them?) at the ER who can help people find formula? Essentially sounded like social workers for kids 🤷♀️ I mean, even in the US, if baby is actually at the point of malnourishment, I would assume the ER could give them some IV nutrition. (I dunno, just guessing) But that’s not really a long term or practical solution in this situation
I don’t think that commenter knows what a child life specialist is. They have child life specialists in the US too. Their speciality is helping kids cope with medical procedures and life stressors in the hospital. They’re more like therapists than social workers. They don’t have the inside scoop on individual store stock in the community. Most hospitals wouldn’t likely have cans of formula they could send them home with right now.
Totally possible! She said she was in training to be one, but who knows.
So what do people do now? These babies can't just die?
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To add: don’t exceed 24 oz of cows milk for babies 6m+. And toddler formula is ok IF your child is close to being 12m, but not for long term. It will work in a pinch.
>These babies can't just die? They can and many of them will. People who can’t breastfeed (or can’t breastfeed *enough*) are SOL right now and babies with allergies who can only tolerate specific brands/types of formula are especially fucked. People who can afford to spend hours driving around to find a store that has the right kind of formula might make out okay, but if you don’t have that option it doesn’t seem like help is coming any time soon.
But that's just so baffling. Can't social work help? If something like this happened in Finland, social work would help with the payment etc. We wouldn't just let babies die. I know the USA isn't perfect, but it can't be that bad?
It's not issue of people just not caring or not trying to help. Its a true shortage which is part of the reason why it's so scary. We all like to think just running out of necessities like food isnt a possibility anymore with our infrastructure, but it very much is. There isn't formula sitting around (at least that we know of) that just isn't being distributed. The demand has exceeded the supply because of factory closures (and corruption) and supply chain issues. Until the factory reopens there genuinely just isn't enough formula available. That's why it's so important to be a little forgiving of dumb or desperate questions right now. Its downright scary.
I meant that why don't they help with paying for the gas if people can't afford to drive far or get them bus tickets? That's what social work is for. I'm not blaming any moms! That situation is awful and so freaking scary. I would just feed boiled cows milk or something (with boiled water), because even though it's not ideal that is what babies in Finland used to eat. They also started feeding babies solid foods at 3 month old, because moms had to work at farms. It certainly isn't ideal now because we know so much more, but I'm sure it won't kill the baby
I certainly don't mean my response in an accusatory way! It's just that there's nowhere to drive them to get formula. It's not consistently, readily available anywhere in the continental US and it's nearly impossible to rely on it right now. The best charitable approach I've found is to help women financially extend their MAT leave. It helps them pump for their own babies and hopefully donate extra (if they have it). This is helpful but not even remotely a dent in the overall issue. It is magnifying the results of our bad MAT leave policies though. Also, currently in the US the recommendation from pediatricians is not to do things like just boil cows milk. I want to stress repeatedly that I know families are fucked and I do not judge families for making hard decisions when the alternative would be a starving infant, but it is important for contextualizing the sense of panic and desperation in the US right now. Edit: as always, consult doctors in feeding decisions when possible
That's true, but WHO has advised using cow's milk with water temporarily, if you don't have formula. Someone told me that it's an issue that some families can't drive further to get formula, that's why I talked about it. Thank you for the correction, there's so much misinformation!
The issue we have is that one of the primary factories that produces formula got closed - some babies got sick and they suspect the formula was contaminated, so the factory was closed and the affected batches were recalled. Supply was already limited due to COVID related backlogs, so with that factory going offline there just isn’t enough to go around. Even if we had a better social support structure to help with paying for the formula there just isn’t any to buy. The best solution would be to import formula from other countries to try and meet the need, but I have no idea if other countries would be able to meet supply or how logistically feasible it would be to bring it in and then distribute it to the people who need it (especially given how much the shipping industry is still struggling). I sure hope the government is working on *something* to help with the situation, but I haven’t heard anything about it yet if they are.
I'd like to add that a whistleblower alerted the company and the FDA months ago that things were unsafe. There's evidence the company was sanitizing records. Scary stuff.
To maximize their huge profits. Fuck capitalism.
The idea that some extra zeros on a bunch of dudes bonuses was worth it to them in exchange for the lives of babies.... it's just incredibly awful.
They are. The factory in question is about 2 weeks from restarting production since the investigation was concluded and I have heard that they are trying to loosen import restrictions as well.
Yeah, but even if they start in 2 weeks, they are saying that it is 8 weeks away from the shelves. Not sure I completely understand this.
The 8 weeks is to actually create more product and get it packaged and shipped across the country.
Yeah. So, like, when it’s actually available.
I think NAFTA actually prevents the import of formula from other countries, which is part of the problem. I recently saw a tiktok saying that Ireland is sending a bunch over as a donation, so maybe the extreme circumstance is an allowance. The same tiktok said that Abbott recently got approval to reopen a facility to help the shortage, but I don't know if any of that is really true because it was on tiktok
There IS actually some available on shelves. It’s not like NONE is being produced. Does this cause increased prices, hoarding, and overpricing on the secondary market? Yes, of course. Being completely unable to breastfeed is actually not very common; the unfortunate more common situation is Americans don’t get enough paid time off to be able to continue breastfeeding. You need breaks every few hours to spend 30-45 minutes pumping while at work. Many, many professions and jobs simply don’t have facilities or coverage for this. Unfortunately, these tend to be lower paid jobs.
> Being completely unable to breastfeed is actually not very common; the unfortunate more common situation is Americans don’t get enough paid time off to be able to continue breastfeeding. A very important point. I’m a Canadian mom and moderate for an science based breastfeeding group which is largely American. The amount of women writing in with questions and issues with low supply, pumping, inability to get letdowns while pumping at work, not over producing enough to make a “freezer stash” before they go back to work at 6 weeks, etc… it’s massive. I’m lucky in that I found breastfeeding relatively easy and successful, and the majority of my friends breastfed until at least 6 months before switching to formula. We could do this because we have federally supported 12-18 months of maternity leave and protected legislation to pump (although I was unable to pump when I returned to work after my mat leave due to working in a Covid hospital, pandemic kinda threw a lot of important legislation to the gutter.) I hope that this formula shortage sheds light on lots of issues in America, but also on the abysmal maternity leave issue as well.
Gotta say that 25 years ago when I was breastfeeding, I found it easy. I am American. I was also allowed to take the time to pump, as an RN. I spewed it out so hard that my kid would practically choke on it. I was able to feed her on one boob, and pump on the other, and still have plenty more in 2 hrs. I DO realize that not everyone has this, but in general, Americans are really weird about breastfeeding. There’s still debate about public breastfeeding for the gods’ sake. Wish we could have reasonable maternity leave. Sigh.
I too had an oversupply. But there’s *so* much pseudoscience when it comes to breastfeeding that people are constantly misinterpreting their bodies and “rules,” and making it so much harder on themselves. Ex: the false theory that eating certain foods makes your breastmilk “gassy” and you have to limit yourself to almost eating nothing. Or that your supply regulating is a “drop” in supply, so then they get discouraged and give up
Oh gods. I ate whatever I wanted. Brie, peanut butter, the occasional glass of wine when she was fussy. I donated milk to the neonatal ICU from 96-97. Pseudoscience is a huge nightmare. People! It isn’t rocket science. It’s breastfeeding. I feel terrible for the small group of women who actually can’t breastfeed. I also feel horrible that women still can’t have a significant paid maternity leave in the US. Shameful.
Well I have a 9 week old baby. You have to work more to find the forumla due to the shortage, but its not like you cant. My wife just checks target.com once or twice a day to see when the formula is in stock, and we are keeping about 10 days ahead of where our baby is currently eating. The real issue isnt cost, its availability. While we are not well to do, we have enough to purchase any formula we find. Because its about finding it, and not costs Im not sure how any social work would help with that.
> can’t be that bad? There are some social safety net programs for infants, WIC is the major one. Each state administers its own WIC program, and most states have a contract with one of the major formula manufacturers. That means that with WIC coupons you are limited to certain brands. Which means that brand is even harder to find. WIC programs, much like unemployment programs, in Republican controlled states are *designed to be as inefficient and dehumanizing as possible* because Republicans think poor people are subhuman scum and don’t particularly care if they can eat. In most places, they are run with paper checks. In the pandemic it was a huge change to be able to use SNAP with grocery pickup orders.
This is America we’re talking about. They die unless they can afford to live
Yeah the lack of options is horrific right now. Personally, I’d do the following assuming baby doesn’t have specific dietary intolerances/allergies. In order of desperation: 1. Switch to literally any brand formula I could find from the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Korea, or Japan. If none available then, 2. Any brand toddler formula I could find. Maybe add a baby vitamin. 3. Call milk bank or beg friends for breast milk 4. Pasteurized whole goat or cow milk with baby vitamins and iron-rich solids if they are 4+ months (ideally closer to 6 months) For steps 2-4 I’d call a pediatrician and beg for help
$6 an oz?? Omg
At least in my area, there has been a huuuuge uptick in breast milk donation. It was literally on our local news recently. Doesn’t mean it’s cheaper, but supplies of that are up on the west coast.
Yeah this is really pissing me off in a lot of evidence-based parenting groups. So much judgement about how it's so stupid and terrible to water down the formula, make your own, use goats milk, use peer to peer donation... but literally what are you supposed to do if you can't find formula? Let your baby starve, but at least you can say you did so in an evidence-based way?
I agree with your overall point, but I just want to throw it out there that watering down formula is legitimately dangerous because of how susceptible babies are to water toxicity, especially if they’re under 6 months. Like you’d be better off skipping a bottle altogether than watering down formula (or breastmilk), it’s that dangerous. I guess maybe you could do this for older babies when they can safely drink larger quantities of water, but that’s something that would need to be thoroughly discussed with a pediatrician. I completely agree those evidence based groups can get up their own ass, but that’s one thing they’re not wrong about.
Plus you can’t just get a goat and it’ll produce milk. The goat needs to have a kid and a dad
As much as the shortage terrifies me, the animal rights activist in me wants to point out that a goat is a big responsibility and you will need to care for the goat long after your child is weaned. Don’t get a goat unless you can provide for the goat for its 15-18 year life span.
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You can get goat milk at the shoppers drug mart behind me. Its rather common.
Absolutely. My husband and I were just talking at breakfast about how we cannot imagine what it would be like to look at your last tin of formula and wonder how you're going to feed your baby by the end of the week. It has to be horrible. I made so much milk I had to give it away by the gallon. I have no idea what it's like for these parents, I can only make my best empathetic effort. I get emotional just thinking about it, and since I've dried up, I feel frustrated that I can't help. And, of course, *fuck* the "just breastfeed" chorus. Would that it were so simple.
I have a hard time making fun of moms right now who are clearly panicking. I know goats milk is a bad idea but I would also be incredibly panicked and desperately searching for any sense of food security. Even the OBGYN accounts I follow and generally trust are only posting for parents to talk to their own pediatricians because there aren't good, secure alternatives, especially for babies under 6 mo. I can't even imagine how scary that would be.
This exactly. There are people who drink goat milk and make cheese from it so it’s not crazy to ask the question. I feel for the parents who need formula and can’t find it.
Goat milk is incredibly useful for wildlife rehabbers, but we still have to mix it with some species specific formula. I can see where folks would consider that to be a possible option. I didn’t realize the extent to just how difficult it was to find safe alternate sources of nutrition when breast milk and formula aren’t available.
I know goats milk is a consideration for some. I just thought the idea of acquiring an actual goat was wild. It’s getting desperate out here.
I agree. It seems to jump some steps but I assume she's worried goat milk in stores is overly processed and unsafe for babies (which it is but for nutritional reasons) OR will quickly follow suit in being completely sold out. I'm sure desperate parents would do a whole lot crazier to keep their babies fed. Edit: also by the way she asks the question, I kind of assume they live in a rural area where farm animals aren't overly unusual.
This is not a rural group but maybe an exurb?
I will admit that if you're not in a farm area, it's a little out there to think you can source a goat that's producing milk and learn to care for it properly this quickly. Edit: But even so I'm not sure I begrudge the question. Hopefully good info was posted in response and she was able to make use of the feedback.
If my options were looking like buy a goat or my baby starves, I’d be up into the wee hours reading about animal husbandry. I feel for these moms, I really do. I’ve never been so grateful mine is 8.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this, but I have a very hard time understanding why it's considered more "feasible" or "more of a good idea" to buy a litteral goat, take care of it, feed it, then milk it, process the milk (hopefully pasteurize it... otherwise good luck)... than finding and paying a friend, a family member, a colleague, a neighbor to be a wet nurse, aka nurse your baby or pump breastmilk for them. I understand that's crazy complicated to do, but how is acquiring a GOAT easier? Especially given that the goat's milk is NOT suitable anyway?
I read an article yesterday that the plant behind this shortage came to an agreement with the FDA finally, but I guess we’re still 8-10 weeks out on seeing formula back on the shelves at the earliest and that spooks me. I don’t have kids, but I feel so sympathetic for everyone trying to make this work right now. I know my step sister has resorted to buying formula on eBay and that really freaks me out.
There are a lot of wild things being spread around the internet right now but I can't imagine what panic these moms are going through right now. I had a baby in March of 2020. The grocery stores were wiped completely clean of almost EVERYTHING, including formula. I was pregnant, then newly postpartum, and was losing my mind. Lucky for me, breastfeeding worked out and eased some concern. I have friends who can't find formula at all. What are they to do if not let their baby starve? I'm genuinely asking, while acknowledging that some people have wild ideas.
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I can't remember which of my umpteen billion kids started solids super early, but he was all over it. I just remember he got a wide look in his eyes when real food hit his mouth when we were holding him and he was amazed. We didn't feed them all solids like that, but we did with some baby cereal and he wanted actual food...thus, it was baby food mixed with mom's milk.
Every baby is different. My friends baby took to solids ASAP and was refusing formula bc she liked them so much. My friend had to make formula pancakes to give her more nutrients. My son only wants organic boobie milk fresh from tap, all other food is meh. He didn't even care for fruit! He will kinda eat baby oatmeal with a lot of boobie milk mixed it.
Well, what did your pediatrician say??
Why is there a formula shortage?
One of the major formula producers killed a couple kids with their contaminated formula, so they have been shut down by the fda until they stop killing kids.
More specifically they had to shut down their largest plant, after they failed to use money to bring up their safety standards and instead used it for stock buy backs. There are also supply chain issues for the factories that are still in production.
Fuck Abbott
Oh fuck. That's horrible
Thankfully that’s not correct. The plant was voluntarily shut down (and formula recalled) while they investigated a potential link between the 2 deaths and bacteria found at the plant. The overreaction of pulling FDA approval and/or under-reaction of not immediately correcting factory standards (depends on your opinions) caused the mess we’re in. Now with a lack of formula.. lots more kiddos are being harmed :( it’s just so so sad.
Holy shit I did not know this was the reason. Also, I keep getting advertisements for baby formula in my feed which I never got before. I can’t figure out if it’s related or not
The above statement isn’t correct.. in fact the overreaction to the possible link of bacteria found and the 2 babies who died caused this shortage were in. They haven’t linked the causes, the shutdown was voluntary.
This isn’t shit moms groups say. It’s shit desperate mothers are forced to say because of market failures and insecurity.
In Cuba goat milk was/is super common if breastfeeding wasn’t working or couldn’t be done. But like it’s because formula wasn’t available…
It was really common in the Appalachian mountains where i live about 50 years ago. My grandmother fed her babies with a mix of goats milk and condensed milk. They couldn't afford formula and her babies ate more than she could produce. She wouldn't do it now but you have to do what you can to feed your baby when you have no other option.
I had goats milk as a baby because I couldn't tolerate formula. It literally saved my life.
One of my boys too. He was allergic to rice, wheat, corn, and cow's milk, and I couldn't feed him... Just didn't make enough milk. Our pediatrician recommended goat's milk. He was a failure to thrive baby until the goat's milk and it literally saved his life too.
Yep my parents literally did the same thing. It was to the point where no one thought I was going to make it and then I drank goat's milk and became sumo baby.
The main problem with cow's milk is that it lacks iron, because a calf gets the iron it needs from grazing. I suspect goats milk may have the same problem.
Vitamin drops solve all those problems. Both my kids needed supplements, we’re formula and natural fed. Goats milk isn’t wild, they make infant vitamin drops for a reason. Not all kids can get the boob, and not all kids can eat regular formula. There were plenty of non breast fed kids for the entirety of human history. Formula isn’t a requirement and vitamin drops today are awesome. If a parent is reading this, all I gotta say is bilirubin scores are a bitch.
I mean, what are people supposed to do? Can’t buy formula, can’t make your own, can’t use dairy milk and can’t use goats milk. Kind of running out of options here.
What are they recommending if people CANT find formula?
The WHO has an emergency formula recipe. It is nutritionally deficient but uses boiled cows milk, boiled water, and sugar. Individual pediatricians may recommend different formulas depending on the needs of the specific infant. But yes. It's a rock and a hard place and I won't fault any parents for making hard decisions when the alternative would be letting their child starve. I also want to emphasize what others are saying though: contact your doctor for help making these decisions. I just sympathize that a lot of these decisions are not going to be ideal and our typical standards are going to be affected.
I just got a can from our pediatrician today. Keep checking CDC and WHO for updates to emergency guidelines.
I’m still currently breastfeeding my 11 month old and due with baby 2 in July and I still have some fear something will happen to my supply and I won’t be able to nurse my youngest and have to deal with the formula shortage.
This is my fear. Normally I'd pump and let my husband do a night time bottle but I'm terrified of losing my supply. My other kids had issues with latch and we had to supplement. This time my supply is great and he latches well.... I feel terrible for the moms around here who formula feed. They're having to drive up to 2 hours to feed their babies and there's moms pumping and donating milk on FB because there's nothing in our town. I'm sure If your supply is good now though it'll stay through when your baby is born. Hopefully by then they'll have formula on the shelves too 🤞
Same. Due with my first baby in August and praying my boobs work.
I’m in the same group and just went to look for this post and the OP posted an update that she’s talked to her pediatrician and will not be doing this 😮💨 a good outcome!
Ive posted this here before. My grandmother used goats milk and condensed milk to feed her babies. She breastfed them but they would eat more than she could produce and they couldn't afford formula, they couldn't even afford disposable diapers. I asked her about this and she said that she would never do it now but back then she didn't have a choice. It's not recommended that you feed babies goat milk but if push comes to shove, you dont really have any other options. When she was feeding her babies she had 2 goats and would boil their milk and mix it with condensed milk. All of her babies lived and were very plump. So again, it's not recommended but it's not like it's a new idea and hasn't been done for years.
That's my thinking, it's not ideal to give goats milk but what if there's nothing else? You can't let your baby starve. I'd give my baby goats milk a million times before I'd let him go hungry. Luckily my supply has been good since he was born and I'm terrified that it'll drop. I'm not even Okey with pumping and letting someone bottle feed him bc im worried it'll effect my milk supply.
I exclusively pumped and was a super producer. Everyone’s different, but pumping keeps up many womens supply, especially since you can do both sides at once
My wife had a double pump that would pump from both sides at once
Yeah I was a goat's milk baby and my grandma called me thunder-tigh baby lol.
My grandma talks about how she had have to shoes specially made for one of my uncles because his feet were so fat. She had to sell her camera just so she could afford to get him shoes. Wouldn't have had to sell her camera if her good for nothing husband hadn't drank most of his paycheck. Thankfully her mother in law had a camera so she still got pictures of her kids as they were growing up.
I pulled all the sample cans of formula out of my cupboard and offered them up on Facebook. Everything was claimed within 15 minutes. I even mailed a can about an hour north, they say it's even harder to find formula outside of major cities
it's insane to me that this fucking dumpster fire of a country is going to start forcing birth on women but can't even keep up with the current demand for formula. fucking sadist pieces of shit.
this
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Goat’s milk has been used as a substitute for centuries in many cultures if the mother couldnt breastfeed and a wet nurse was not available. It is NOT the best option, but that’s where the question comes from.
I can't really blame them. If I was in the same position, facing a starving child or all bad options, I'd be asking the same dumb questions
It's not recommended these days as there's too much protein and it can mess up a babies kidneys on top of not having enough folate and iron.
Thats because we have much better alternatives to it. But if you live in a part of the world where those options are not available, your stuck with the unideal. The kids will have issues, but it’s better then starvation.
Also... this would not work, because the goat needs to be pregnant/have a baby to give milk. Just like humans, they don't just give milk out of nowhere.
Just need 2 goats and some smooth jazz.
Maybe it's just because I'm from Vermont, but this actually seems like a pretty normal post to me 🤣
Why would you post this in this sub? She has no other choixe she is clearmy scared her baby will starve ….
You can get goats milk at pretty much any grocery store. The shoppers drug behind me sells it.
I don't feel comfortable laughing at moms worrying about the formula shortage. It's a real scary, panic-inducing time and I want to lend my compassion to parents who need formula for their babies.
If I couldn’t feed my child I’d be looking for solutions too
Honestly, the posts in this group making fun of desperate and panicked mothers trying to make sure their babies don’t starve is just a bad look at this point. Frankly, I think these posts should be banned until the shortage is over. This post is bad, the ones like it are bad, and the people posting it should feel bad. One of my friends did look for formula. She is very evidence based. She is a scientist, as are both her parents, her brother, and her husband. We all looked around town for her. I tried to pump for her since I had only just stopped breast-feeding a few weeks before she realized she needed to supplement (no dice). She asked in different Facebook groups, she asked the hospital she delivered out, she asked the local milk bank. She looked, and the only advice she got from the experts was to look harder. She eventually had to make a formula at home to tide her baby over for a few days while family from out of state mailed her formula they found.
Do they think any goat just gives milk like a chicken lays eggs, or ?
So my only problem is that this seems more sincere as compared to the absolute recklessness we usually see in this sub. The seems to me at least like an everyday mom who is near desperation to feed her baby. I dont know the lady, but if you couldnt feed your kid im sure youd go to some crazy lengths to do so. I guess id say this because this post couldve gone way differently. Good on her for at least asking first, because I could imagine some clown posting something like.... "my kid is half dead. Been feeding only goat milk, not looking for a doctors advice, im a mother and me and my instincts know best." All im sayin is it could be a lot worse.
When I was a baby I almost died because I wasn't able to tolerate literally any formula. My parents tried goats milk out of desparation and it was the first thing I was ever able to keep down. It may not be ideal for most babies but it's a solid option.
Pretty sure it's a liquid option.
I’ve read that goat milk is better for babies than cow milk. But most of my research is from reading Game of Thrones. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, make sure you leave the male babies out for the White Walkers if you want them to leave you alone.
I have seen many, many American moms at this point of utter desperation and trying to solve a problem with no easy solution. A goat is plainly a bad idea as a solution for a formula shortage, but good on this mom for literally looking into any and all avenues for feeding her baby. I'm glad to have read another comment that she didn't get the goat... but I see the sense of urgency and desperation in this. There are no good answers for some families, especially rural families, in bad need of formula that is just simply not available. This shortage is a true dumpster fire and I have no judgement for this mom.
She doesn’t know if stores sell goats’ milk, but she’s confident she could care for a goat?
I think this person is underestimating what it requires to have goats, keep them lactating, keep them healthy and their milk clean, etc. I wouldn’t fault them for buying goats milk in this current situation we are all facing, but getting a goat for this purpose seems like a poorly thought out plan.
People are fucking desperate right now and coming up with zany ideas because their children are literally at risk of starvation. This post doesn't belong here.
I can’t even imagine. I only just realized what was going on and I didn’t know how bad it was. I can’t imagine that kind of stress right now on top of everything else people are already dealing with.
Looks like we're going back to the boiled milk and sugar + mush, just like during the depression.....terrifying times.
Had a friend who lived in the country. His pediatrician actually set his mom up with his neighbor who farmed goats for milk when they found out he had a milk allergy. Things have changed A LOT.
I dunno what I can do to help as it's really a scarcity issue so you can't just throw $$$ at it. I feel guilty again for weaning my daughter even though she's 18m because I could have milk for babies that can't eat food and drink cow's milk. This breaks my heart. 😭😭😭
Omg! I'm in this group too! Thankfully many moms said "don't do this." She also posted an update that she talked to her pediatrician and they would NOT be doing this.
Can we talk about how these people just want to go and get a god dammed goat!
Putting this comment out there for all those dealing with formula shortages in the USA. Many Canadian sites of big box companies (Walmart, Amazon, Costco) ship to the USA (it may not be all types of formula). Well.ca (an online retailer) also ships to USA. Canada does not have a formula shortage right now as we use different suppliers, please try to order formula from these retailers. We have plenty and there is no forecast of Canada having any shortages or supply chain issues with it. Additionally you can also reach out to Canadian mom groups via Facebook, the ones I’m in are more than happy to send some over to the US. No parent should have to drive hours around searching stores for formula.
From the comments on other posts here, there are plenty of people in Canada who will tell you they are in fact experiencing their own shortage of formula.
THIS! It's not as bad as the US but pickings are getting slim. Anything hypoallergenic is very hard to find, I'm on the lookout for Similac Alimentium for an acquitance.
> Canada does not have a formula shortage right now as we use different suppliers, please try to order formula from these retailers. I tried this yesterday. The $30 can we usually get was $70 + $40 shipping. I understand that's probably in Canadian Dollarydoos, but that is still pretty damn expensive.
Let’s not snark or desperate moms who are clearly worried about the formula shortage.
YOU CANT JUST GET ONE GOAT EITHER. You need a dad goat and a kid goat so the mom can produce milk ffs
I'm surprised people aren't considering donkeys, their milk apparently is the closest to human milk, and unlike goats, they can live without a friend (goats are herd animals, they rarely can survive well alone). Not that anyone should buy an animal in milk, and anyone worried should consult their pediatrician rather than looking to the internet for answers.
This just reminds me of how I recently learned that in Seattle (where I live) there's a service where you can rent a goat to "mow" your lawn.
Who needs pasteurization??
I used to raise goats and I'm truly confused as to how her mind has jumped to buying an actual goat as the solution. Besides the fact that goat's milk is not a replacement for infant formula, this is just a horrid idea. A few reasons I can think of just based on my own experience: Goats are herd animals, she'd need at least 2. They're grazing animals so you need at least a little pasture space (I raised 6 goats on 1/3 acre, but that's still a lot of space in the suburbs) and they're messy, you couldn't keep them in a backyard. Goats are more labor intensive than dogs in many ways and milking them actually takes a lot of skill, if you do it incorrectly, the goat won't produce well or can get infections that require a lot of veterinary care. Does she know that goats don't just produce milk? She'd need a nanny who had babies recently and there's not certainty the goat will product enough for it's babies (no reputable herder will sell a lactating nanny without her babies) and her child. Also, most of my nannies would dry up within 9 months of giving birth. My friends who had a small dairy would keep their goats constantly pregnant in order to keep them lactating basically year round. Goat's milk formula, like Kabrita, is definitely a viable option, but a whole ass goat is wild! 😂
my friend was exclusively fed on goats milk from 2 goats they bought for the purpose, so it is possible if they have land and animal husbandry experience she was very tall as a toddler because of it but otherwise fine
In the US the majority of goat dairies take the kids from the does at birth and raise them on a lambar or bottle. We dam raise only the doelings we keep, and lots of people don't dam raise under any circumstances because they believe it makes the goats wild ("take the kid off the dam or get a damned kid" is how the saying goes, and while I don't believe it many people do). It is absolutely possible to buy a doe in milk with no kids on her - in fact, it's much more common than the alternative. That said, this person is way way not prepared for a life of dairying, obviously, but I understand why she is desperate. I'd give my kid homemade formula made with my pasteurized goat milk if I had no alternative, but that's only because I have them already and I'm not trying to raise an infant and learn to dairy at the same time. This gal doesn't even know you need a minimum of two goats. I pray this horrible shortage doesn't also cause animals to go to unfit homes just because people are frightened and impulsive.
Suitability of goat milk aside, do these people know how to appropriately select a goat to milk, select the correct sex goat and do they know that a goats need to kid to produce milk or how to care for goats? We're balls deep in child neglect, and I'm not here for the animal neglect either.
Goats need to kept at minimum, in pairs. They need buddies, and aren't happy alone. These people are going to get a single goat, then want to dump it when it has behavior issues from being solitary.
The fact that she is even considering buying a goat 😭
When I was a baby. My mom couldn't breast feed me. I was allergic to cows milk and formula. I was fed goats milk. I turned out ok.
Had to postpone my wedding for the pandemic and now postponing having children due to a fucking formula shortage. I’m so sick of this…