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Mutual Aid Takes New Form as Baby Formula Shortage Continues

Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at a growing movement in New York City and around the country to help mitigate the impact of a baby formula shortage by donating breast milk. And we’ll learn about one of the many families of autistic teenagers who have struggled to care for them during the pandemic.

Credit…Sarah Blesener for The New York Times

Since the pandemic began, New Yorkers have found many new ways to help their neighbors: community refrigerators, grocery runs, check-ins. Now, a national baby formula shortage is supersizing another form of mutual aid: donating breast milk.

Some new mothers produce more milk than others, and some find it easier than others to pump their milk. Organizations like the New York Milk Bank have long provided donated milk to hospitals and the parents of sick and premature infants.

Now, demand is growing among parents who are simply trying to feed their babies any way they can, my colleague Sharon Otterman reports. Across retailers in the metropolitan New York City area, 70 percent of infant formula was out of stock as of May 21, according to Datasembly, a provider of retail data. That was in line with national trends.

Milk requests to the New York Milk Bank have risen about 20 percent in recent weeks, and requests to donate are also increasing, Linda Harelick, the executive director, said recently.

“Usually I send out two applications a day,” Ms. Harelick said. “Today I sent out 20.”

In New York and other parts of the United States, parents are arranging formula exchanges where they post about their unneeded formula. Parenting groups are sharing information on social media and text chains about informal breast milk donations and crowdsourced sightings of formula at stores.

Formal breast milk banks like the Human Milk Banking Association of North America report an explosion in interest in their services. Donors fill out extensive health questionnaires, take blood tests to check for disease and receive clearance from their doctors. The milk is blended and pasteurized.

More informal kinds of sharing milk are also on the rise. Parents who once might have been leery about the practice say they need less guidance about the dangers and more advice about solutions. (Doctors recommend disinfecting breast milk donated informally by placing bottles in a pan of boiling water very briefly.)

Judy Cheung of Whitestone, Queens, is a packaging designer and first-time mother who also happens to be a super-producer of breast milk. So far, she has donated 2,399 ounces to the New York Milk Bank. And she still had two freezers full of excess supply.

Read More on the Baby Formula Shortage

  • Understand the Shortage: With just a handful of companies making infant formula for the U.S. market, the shutdown of an Abbott Laboratories plant had an outsize effect.
  • Missing Safeguards: The shortage has revealed regulation gaps that make it hard to monitor the deadly bacterium that led to a recall.
  • A Desperate Search: As the United States faces a baby formula shortage, some parents are rationing supplies, or driving for hours in search of them.
  • An Emotional Toll: The shortage is forcing many new mothers to push themselves harder to breastfeed, with some even looking for ways to start again after having stopped.

Diana Feng, of Douglaston, Queens, had been refreshing store websites for weeks in hopes of finding formula for her 5-month-old daughter, Charlotte. Then she heard through a friend that Ms. Cheung had milk to spare.

“I was flabbergasted,” Ms. Feng, 31, said. “Because it’s not every day that someone offers breast milk, certainly not for free.”

“My family calls me a cow,” Ms Cheung said. “Like literally. And it’s insulting and nice at the same time, you know?”


Weather

Prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms from the afternoon through the evening, with patchy fog. Temps near 80 will drop to the mid-60s at night.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Monday (Shavuot).


The latest New York news

Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Shootings

  • Buffalo: The man accused of carrying out a racist shooting at a Buffalo supermarket has been charged with 25 counts of murder, domestic terrorism and other charges in relation to the May 14 massacre.

  • A “gun violence czar”: Mayor Eric Adams is expected to appoint a “gun violence czar.” The administration has also considered declaring a state of emergency related to the surge in gun violence

  • Sunset Park: Ilene Steur, who was shot in the Brooklyn subway attack in April, filed a federal lawsuit against the manufacturer of the firearm used in the shooting.

More local news

  • Dyslexia and a mayor’s sweeping plan: Mr. Adams was not diagnosed with a learning disability until college. Now, he is making dyslexia screenings a central policy issue.

  • Unsolved deaths: The New Jersey attorney general’s office opened an investigation into the unsolved deaths of a prominent political couple whose bodies were found in their home nearly eight years ago.

  • Union strike: The Vox Media Union’s contract expires at midnight on June 13. Its members signed a strike pledge as negotiations over a contract went down to the wire.

Arts & Culture

  • Art at La Guardia: With the opening of the Delta Air Lines Terminal C at La Guardia Airport, there’s a gleaming new transportation hub. And a distinctive new collection of public artwork.

  • Weed rush in the city: For generations, entrepreneurs and dreamers have moved to New York City to strike it big. Now they’re coming to sell a lot of cannabis.


Everyone agrees they’re in crisis, but parents who need help with autistic teenagers wait month after month.

Credit…Libby March for The New York Times

Joseph Goldstein, who covers health care in the New York area, had long heard about teenagers with various health concerns who essentially lived in hospitals and emergency rooms because their needs often overwhelmed parents at home. Many of these teenagers were autistic.

After the pandemic hit, Joe wanted to see how the disruption it caused was hitting these families. He learned about Crystol and Jeremy Benedict and their 13-year-old daughter, Sabrina.

I talked to Joe about the time he spent chronicling the Benedicts’ quest to help Sabrina for this article. He visited the family and kept in touch for months. He watched and listened as Sabrina’s parents managed the daily upsets and meltdowns, which had become difficult, and even dangerous, to handle, since she had grown bigger and stronger than both of them.

What’s the most revealing thing about the family’s situation?

What really struck me is that there are hundreds of these families like the Benedicts who are clearly in crisis, and they’re surrounded by an array of organizations and agencies that know they’re in crisis and agree that something needs to be done, but nothing happens for months and sometimes years.

Navigating the Baby Formula Shortage in the U.S.


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A growing problem. A nationwide shortage of baby formula — triggered in part by supply-chain issues and worsened by a recall by the baby food manufacturer Abbott Nutrition — has left parents confused and concerned. Here are some ways to manage this uncertainty:

Checking your supplies. Abbott Nutrition has recalled several lots of its Similac, Alimentum and EleCare formulas after at least four babies became sick with bacterial infections. To find out whether a formula in your home may be affected by the recall, check the lot number on the Abbott website. If you learn that you fed your child a recalled product, contact your pediatrician.

Finding formula. If your baby’s formula was not affected by the recall, but is still not available, you can try calling local stores to ask when they expect to get it back in stock. You may also be able to buy it online. If your baby is on special formula, reach out to your doctor’s office: They might have samples in stock.

Picking a new formula. If you typically use a name-brand formula, look for its generic version. Alternatively, seek a new formula that matches the ingredients listed in your usual one. If your baby is on a special formula for health reasons, check with your pediatrician before switching.

Transitioning to a new product. Ideally, you will want to switch your child gradually. Start by mixing three quarters of your usual formula with one quarter of the new one and gradually phase out the old product. If you can’t transition gradually because you’ve run out of your usual formula, that’s OK, although you might notice more gassiness or fussiness during the transition.

What not to do. If you can’t find your baby’s usual formula, don’t make your own — homemade formulas are often nutritionally inadequate and at risk of contamination. Don’t try to “stretch” your formula by adding extra water, and don’t buy it from unvetted online marketplaces like Craigslist. For a baby less than 1 year old, don’t use toddler formula.

There’s this disconnect between what government agencies agree on and the family’s experience — hourslong struggles many times each week, sometimes on roadsides, often involving multiple police officers, often in the freezing cold.

Why did the pandemic make things worse?

In March 2020 people’s routines and structures collapsed — routines that are even more crucial to autistic kids. One Brooklyn dad’s son could not accept that school was closed. Until his father would drive him and show him that his school was not open, he would not move on with the day. This would repeat on many days.

So there’s always been more demand than spots at residential schools that can be ideal for some kids with bigger needs like Sabrina, but that has become a bigger mismatch now, because there are more families in crisis. It takes years, and in the Benedicts’ case, the father had to quit his job.

Is there fear that involving the police could lead to kids being shot?

There was definitely the fear that the next encounter would be terrible, that she’d be Tased or worse. In her case it’s a small town. The emergency medical workers knew the family. Sabrina would leave school and walk along a busy road. There was real danger of being hit by cars.

What does society not understand about this problem?

Many autistic children don’t go through these problems. But there are others in worse situations than the Benedicts. We really need more words in our language — for crisis, for family responsibility. I wouldn’t have understood the behaviors and the burden on the family if I hadn’t seen it.

Did you get to know Sabrina?

Sabrina recognized me and knew what I was doing; at one point she wanted to interview me. But I mostly just observed. I didn’t want my presence to be an irritant to her. Getting through the day is difficult enough. She’s only 13. And the story is really about the parents and their journey.


METROPOLITAN diary

Full pie

Dear Diary:

I was leaving my Midtown office after work on a Monday evening. I had returned from a trip that morning and gone straight to the office, so I still had my bags with me.

I walked to the corner to hail a cab. Luckily, one was approaching just as I got there.

Reaching to open the door while juggling my belongings, I noticed a large pizza box on the back seat.

“There’s a box of pizza back here,” I said to the driver.

“Oh, give that to me,” he said. “The lady who just got out must’ve left it.”

I threw my things in the back and handed him the box through the window.

As I got into the back of the cab, he opened the box and tilted it toward the plastic partition so I could get a look.

“This is a full pie from Serafina!” he exclaimed. “Want to split it?”

I politely declined.

“OK, your choice,” he said. “But do you mind if I play some soft jazz?”

— Samantha Tobin

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.


Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — A.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero, Jeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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