Why Is There a Baby Formula Shortage?

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 Why Is There a Baby Formula Shortage? 

While a number of factors contributed to the decreased supply of baby formula, a series of recalls in February 2022 exacerbated the problem.  Abbott Nutrition, one of the leading manufacturers of baby formula, voluntarily recalled three types of baby formula after four babies were sickened after consuming the products.

The New York Times reported:

"The recall includes select lots of Similac, Alimentum and EleCare formulas that were manufactured at an Abbott facility in Sturgis, Michigan.  It comes after the Food and Drug Administration received four consumer complaints of bacterial infections related to the formulas."

Abbott said in a statement published to their website that the company was working closely with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to resume operations.  The company, which also makes sports drinks and nutritional milkshakes, said that it would prioritize baby formula in order to ease the shortage.

"Millions of parents rely on our formula to feed their babies. And we know that our recent recall caused additional stress and anxiety in an already challenging situation of a global supply shortage.  We are working hard to help moms, dads and caregivers get the high-quality nutrition they need for their babies."

"Abbott is working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restart operations at the Sturgis, Michigan, facility.  We continue to make progress on corrective actions and will be implementing additional actions as we work toward addressing items related to the recent recall.  In the meantime, we are working to increase the supply of infant formula by prioritizing infant formula production at our facilities that provide product to the U.S. market."

FDA said in a statement:

"The FDA is working with Abbott Nutrition to better assess the impacts of the recall and understand the production capacity at other Abbott facilities that produce some of the impacted brands."

Brian Dittmeier, the senior director of public policy at the National WIC Association, a nonprofit that works to provide nutritional assistance to women, infants and children (WIC), told the New York Times that the "unprecedented scope of this infant formula recall has serious consequences for babies and new parents."

In addition to these recalls, general inflation and supply chain issues have compounded the problem.  Datasembly CEO Ben Reich said: "Inflation, supply chain shortages, and product recalls have brought an unprecedented amount of volatility for baby formula."

You should socially normalize breastfeeding in public, too.
Safe, healthy, independent of market turbulences.

Agreed, on all counts.

Ignorant Man Question: If a woman stops nursing her baby and switches to formula, can she go back to nursing her baby if the formula supply runs out?

Depends on the individual and for how long she didn't breastfeed. In my case, a three weeks pause wasn't a problem at all but I suspect I'm on the more milky side of the spectrum.
Taking into account that people use formula for months, it's unlikely they could start to nurse on large scale to solve the crisis. Though, some individuals may use this option.

Breast feeding also protects the mothers against certain cancers and the kids are healthier, no tummy problems, ear infections , the mothers antibodies pass to the baby so if Mom gets a cold the baby usually doesn’t.
If the shortage continues there will be a demand for wet nurses.
Mine were both breast fed, so much easier than dealing with formula.

Maybe, with a lot of work, but the baby will still need something to eat in the meantime. It requires trying to remove milk a LOT to tell the body that more needs to be produced, a very time consuming, exhausting process. I think in most cases it would not be possible to go from completely weaned to producing all the milk the baby needs.

The push to breastfeed is huge, at least in the US, and I don't personally know anyone who chose to feed formula without it being the result of breastfeeding difficulties. A lot of things can go wrong and make breastfeeding either impossible or prohibitively challenging.

I have breastfed 2 babies, formula fed 1 due to feeding challenges, and currently am half breastfeeding/half formula feeding my youngest because I wasn't making enough milk and could not put in all the hours to try and increase my supply on top of raising all 4 kids and moving house. Thankfully, we have not been impacted by the formula shortage yet.

I have a friend in dire straights because she has a child with severe, extensive allergies and medical issues who can only eat one rare type of formula, which they are about to run out of. That's where this shortage gets really scary. I'm not afraid for my own baby, because I should be able to substitute any type of formula available or even try to make my own, and she's old enough to start having some solid food, too.

But wait...

I just this morning heard THE TRUTH from Fox News on the Sirius XM radio playing in the carpool driver's car.

According to Fox the shortage is the fault of the US. Govt. because it's been "hoarding" baby formula so they can give it to those migrants at the border. Well actually...they said some senator is accusing the Feds of doing that.

What can I say? Nowadays you cant tell real politics from parodies, like this:

Blame for it all

The world really is coming to an end. Mothers who are unable to breastfeed are going to have to watch their infants suffer malnutrition or even die. I'm sure the pro-life people will find a way to blame this on abortionists. Either that or they won't care since the kids are already born.

Reminds me of Poland in 1980s... there were shortages of everything, including baby formula of course, and lots of babies.
How did our parents cope? My mother breastfed and gave her rations of baby formula to her neighbour who didn't.
My MiL used her personal connections to hospital staff where baby formula was available.
I hope the problem gets resolved soon in US.

Of course, there are mothers who are going to ignore warnings that making a homemade formula is unsafe and then wonder why on earth their infants are sick.

Maybe if Americans weren't so incredibly offended by public breastfeeding, this wouldn't be a problem.

No she cannot because then her body stops producing milk and her milk supply will dry up.

It was our s**thead governor who made the remarks about migrants.

According to Greg Abbott, migrants are:

Raping white women
Purposely giving white people COVID
Hoarding baby formula
Giving white people drugs
"Replacing" white people
Stealing white jobs
Mooching off Welfare

Abbott and DeSatan are leading us down a dark path faster than Trump ever could.

Last edited by Tim_Tex on 16 May 2022, 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

The answer to that Why? may have its ultimate root not in corporations or government but in pregnancies;
"
In addition to its highly concentrated structure, the baby formula market is difficult for another reason. Its demand is set by the nation’s birth rate, and the market has been shrinking for years. The number of births has declined every year since 2008, except for 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

With only a few key players whose capacities are tied to a shrinking market, repercussions are inevitable when anything gets in the way of a certain product getting to store shelves. Other manufacturers are bound to struggle with an influx of new demand from consumers who can’t get what they’d typically buy.

“The dilemma [manufacturers] have is that it's not a very lucrative market,” says Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain management at Syracuse University.
"
(and how did THIS topic end up in Yahoo's SPORTS news section?)
https://sports.yahoo.com/america-runnin ... 00395.html

^ I have a different question:
Why one company's bad politics shook all the market so badly? I thought the idea of market economy was that a company doing bad job loses competition for those who do it better.
Aren't there smaller, diverse manufacturers of baby formula? I just checked and we have 6 Polish baby formula brands, 2 French, countless German, some Swiss and British, all available on local market... in this "bad" socialdemocratic EU with high taxes, annoying bureaucracy and heavy regulations.
Your anti-monopoly laws need refreshing.

That specific question is answered in my post a couple hours ago - declining birthrates all during the 21st century are continuously shrinking the demographic that's available to sell formula to.

It's not so much a problem with anti-monopoly laws as it is that the government which makes those laws has become a sort of monopoly, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ll/629828/
"
America’s formula policy warps the industry in one more way. The Department of Agriculture has a special group called WIC—short for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—that provides a variety of services to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their young children. It is also the largest purchaser of infant formula in the United States, awarding contracts to a small number of approved formula companies. As a result, the U.S. baby formula industry is minuscule, by design. A 2011 analysis by USDA reported that three companies accounted for practically all U.S. formula sales: Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Gerber.
"

A couple other factors;

https://qz.com/2163395/all-the-reasons- ... -shortage/
"
Like many areas of US food manufacturing, the infant formula industry is highly concentrated (pdf), and dominated by just a few major players (pdf). These manufacturers compete on price, and so efficiency is crucial, said Rachna Shah, a supply chain professor at University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. In other words, there can’t be extra supply or back stock, since that is costly. In contrast, clothing manufacturers compete more on what’s fashionable in the moment than on cost, so the main challenge is getting to market quickly rather than producing efficiently, she said.

As a result, any disruption to food-related supply chains can cause huge problems, where consumers will feel the effect immediately, she said.
"

and,

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/brie ... onomy.html
"
Because sales of baby formula do not fluctuate much in normal times, factories generally lack the ability to accelerate production quickly, Rudi Leuschner, a supply-chain expert at Rutgers University, said. As a result, other factories have not been able to make up for the Sturgis shutdown.
"

Last edited by kitesandtrainsandcats on 16 May 2022, 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.