Posted on 05/11/2022 8:51:59 PM PDT by blam
With 43% of baby formula out of stock across the country due to supply disruptions at the nation’s largest plant, images of empty shelves and desperate mothers have been flooding social media.
Photo: Fox News
But don’t try to take matters into your own hands, moms. According to the New York Times, pediatricians “strongly advise” against trying to make baby formula at home.
Some are rationing food or driving to stores hours away only to find empty shelves. Others are heading online to look up homemade baby formula recipes that use anything from powdered goat’s milk to raw cow’s milk.
But pediatricians warn that do-it-yourself baby formulas carry significant health risks. -NYT
“Homemade formula is dangerous for babies,” said Dr. Katie Lockwood, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Primary Care. “Regular formula is F.D.A.-regulated and held to very high standards, the same way we treat medications. Making it at home is a lot riskier.“
Steven Abrams, spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said “The nutrients in homemade formulas are inadequate in terms of the critical components babies need, especially protein and minerals.”
Home brew baby formula can also contain “an excess of materials or nutrients, like salt, which a baby’s developing kidneys or liver may be unable to break down.”
What’s more, babies can suffer from “water intoxication,” – where the “baby might get too much water” if the balance of nutrients and liquids are off, according to Dr. Suzette Oyeku, chief of academic general pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, in New York City.
What’s their solution? Call your doctor! Go to a charity! Use cow milk in a pinch!
“The first call any parent or caregiver struggling to track down baby formula should make is to their child’s pediatrician. They may have formula samples on hand, or be able to help connect you with local charities or breast milk banks that can help.”
In a pinch, babies over six months — with no known allergies — can have pasteurized whole-milk cow’s milk for a brief period of time until parents are able to find formula. While not ideal in large part because it does not provide sufficient iron, it’s preferable to offering them homemade formula or diluting store-bought formula with water, Dr. Abrams said.
The Abbott Laboratories baby formula plant in Sturgis, Michigan was shuttered by the FDA nearly three months ago after receiving four reports of infants who were hospitalized with bacterial infections after consuming the formula from the facility – two of whom died.
The company reportedly failed to repair aging drying machines.
So, the origin of the baby formula pocalypse was Abbott management’s refusal to repair dilapidated and failure-prone drying machines turning the plant into proverbial petri dishes for cronobacter, because…
They needed that $5.73 billion for stock buybacks, obvs pic.twitter.com/GBmn3n4SWn
— moe tkacik (@moetkacik) May 11, 2022
According to NBC Boston, the FDA announced on Tuesday that it would allow ‘some’ products from the shuttered Abbott facility to be released on a “case-by-case” basis.
Now, the FDA is saying it will not object “to Abbott Nutrition releasing product to individuals needing urgent, life-sustaining supplies of certain specialty and metabolic formulas on a case-by-case basis.”
Abbott, meanwhile, says it will take at least two months before baby formula from the plant can return to store shelves.
“We understand the situation is urgent – getting Sturgis up and running will help alleviate this shortage,” the company said in a Wednesday statement.
“Subject to [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] approval, we could restart the site within two weeks,” the statement continues “We would begin production of EleCare, Alimentum and metabolic formulas first and then begin production of Similac and other formulas. From the time we restart the site, it will take six to eight weeks before product is available on shelves.”
One has to wonder…
Why hasn’t @JoeBiden used the Defense Production Act to order the production of baby formula?
Why haven’t our journalists, who insisted that Trump invoke the Act during the pandemic (necessary or not), demanded Biden do so?
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) May 12, 2022
My Baby Needs Formula, And I’m Getting Scared She Won’t Have It
hmmmm, milk and karo is dangerous?
Why not (1) breastfeed and (2) get real food and mash it up like we did in the old days.
Good grief. What the hell are women and babies supposed to do in the meantime?
Doesn’t this ‘land of the free, home of the brave’ have any doctor/scientist/nutritionist able to distribute a safe recipe and process?
What on Earth did we do, before we had ‘experts’? Even in the old days before ‘formula’ existed, some women couldn’t nurse.
Amazon has a lot of baby formula. If I needed it, I’d go there first.
Why wouldn’t the government require manufacturers to lace their product?
Sometimes when you buy stuff on Amazon, you can’t be sure of the source or expiration date.
But pediatricians warn that do-it-yourself baby formulas carry significant health risks. -NYT
—
I would imagine not feeding the baby for two months would be a more significant risk. (Where do they find these experts.)
Very True- some of the stuff likely sits in someone’s basement for months or longer=- and who knows if they even inspect it before sending it out? I don’t buy food stuff from amazon-
totally not except in rare cases of some kind of dairy issue/allergy
Yeah...I don’t think they had that when I was a kid. Time to go old school on the globalists! They are a bunch of pu$$ies and have no clue how the frontier peoples lived!
More fear-mongering. You can see how debilitated we are as a nation when the media admonishes you about trying to find a way to provide for your infants without baby formula.
But feeding your baby nothing at all doesn't?
“...the origin of the baby formula pocalypse was Abbott management’s refusal to repair dilapidated and failure-prone drying machines...”
Seems to me that something so critical for babies shouldn’t be left up to the greedy capitalist pigs, but should be under the realm of critical infrastructure and handled by the government.
(I’m guessing that is what the writer is going for anyways.)
I read some article where the babies sickness and deaths were never to be proven to be from the formula. But the FDA did find some bacteria in areas of the plant away from any formula processing areas.
Dana Loesch had some interesting commentary on this today, including that the ‘shortage’ is only on liquid formula (not powdered) and the ban on European-sourced formula (for reasons road noise prevented me from hearing).
This seems to elaborate somewhat:
https://www.cato.org/blog/rock-bye-trade-restrictions-baby-formula
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