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
The shutdown was voluntary, sure, but once FDA inspected and cleared them, why would they not immediately re-open? Unless they know it was them and the investigation just didn’t find the cause or something, I can’t see any other reason for them to not be back at full steam a month+ ago...
“Ivermectin is dangerous,” said Dr. Big Nutraceutical. “Vaccines are F.D.A.-regulated and held to very high standards.”
How did we ever survive before the MSM told us what to do?
I don't know. I'm old enough to remember sitting around in the living room on saturday night with family and listening to 'Gunsmoke' on the radio, No TV.
How ever did we manage?
It's the same method the FedGov is using to target troublesome conservatives: there are so many laws on the books that no person can possibly exist without breaking a couple. Post a patriot tweet, and GOTCHA!
Can you post it here?
So how did babies survive before highly processed fake-food baby formula was invented by the chemical industry?
Bring 20 oz. of water to a rolling boil and let boil for five minutes. You will only need 18 oz., but this allows for some evaporation of the water.
Measure 18 oz. of the boiled water into a large measuring cup.
Cover the measuring cup with a paper towel or a saucepan lid that will completely cover the top of the cup. Allow the water to cool to room temperature.
Add in 1 can (13 oz.) of evaporated milk and 2 tbsp. of light Karo syrup. Stir until well-blended.
Pour into a sterilized half-gallon jar or bottles and store in the refrigerator until needed.
Taken from: https://www.hellomotherhood.com/make-baby-formula-karo-syrup-4840860.html
Political feminism had little to do with bottle feeding from the outset. Throughout history, lactation problems in the mother caused the "failure to thrive" or threatened the death of many infants. Human necessity drove the search for solutions since caveman days. Other women served or were paid to "wet nurse" if a mother could not, with all the relational and practical complications of that, especially on the remote frontiers, and female goats, cows and donkeys were also used to nurse infants.
Mass market bottle-feeding was made possible by the Industrial Revolution. Starting around the turn of the 20th century, bottle-feeding "went viral" through the rise of print advertising and mass media such as newspapers and women's magazines. The professionalization of OB-GYN in the late 1930s, peaking in the 50s, began pushing for bottle-feeding as superior to breast milk, no doubt helped along by formula manufacturer's lobbying of primary care docs. The elites of the day pushed the idea that breastfeeding was animalistic, but the new, scientific modern world would be one of better nutrition through bottle feeding.
The Second Wave feminists of the 60s and 70s actually worked to reverse the bottle-feeding trend and supported a return to breast feeding. Although women also began working outside the home en masse during this period, at least a greater percentage breastfed as long as able. Prior to WW2, women customarily quit jobs when pregnant. However, two major crusades of Second Wave feminism was to retain employment by securing guaranteed maternal leave from a job, as well as obtaining nursing rights in the workplace, such as a private room for pumping and a refrigerator for storing breast milk.
The article below also has a lot of info, and additional links at the end:
MIL and most mothers of the 20s through 60s were brainwashed by the elites of the day to look down on breastfeeding. Explained in more detail in my post just preceding this one.
No one alive today was born before manufactured baby formula, which started in Europe in the 1870s.
At what age were your infants when you started feeding liquidized table food? Many have digestion problems prior to 4 months or more.
i have to find it first and scan it... i’ll see what i can do
See the "History of Baby Formula" link at the bottom of post 70.
Thanks, SouthernClaire.
Oh goodness, Albion. Takes me back just a bit.
When she was darn near a newborn, I would mash soft things on my plate for her such as scrambled eggs smothered in milk gravy. Sounds kind of gross but she loved it.
I was very fortunate to have had an old fashioned doctor. (He delivered my husband and generations before him.) I called him one day when my baby would not stop crying. He told me to half and half water and Coke. It worked like a charm. She burped loudly and all was at peace again. He just used good common sense.
You are most welcome, Albion.
My MIL certainly did try to tell us that formula milk was superior to breast milk in terms of nutrition. Also, she insinuated that breast-feeding was for the "lower classes" of society. Even before formula, upper class women would hire wet nurses to feed their babies as breast-feeding was considered "beneath their dignity." I remember reading how Rose Kennedy hired nursemaids for her infant children for example for that very reason.
I breastfed all eight of mine. Never used formula.
All these pre-planned government created shortages need to stop. They are purposely making the American people suffer.
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