'What are we supposed to do?': Local parents struggle with baby formula shortage

May 17—Nicole Plaza-Young hasn't been sleeping well lately.

In her nightmares, she goes from store to store, looking for formula for her 3-month-old baby. All she finds are empty shelves.

With the ongoing national shortage of infant formula, life isn't much less scary for the Brunswick mom when she's awake.

Her son is allergic to milk protein, so he relies on hypoallergenic formula for his meals. Plaza-Young and her husband have a stash that will last their child for about a week and a half, but they have family members across Maryland ready to snatch additional formula when they see it in stores.

Plaza-Young spends time online every day looking for stores with formula available. She's tried to buy food for her son as far away as Canada and Washington state. But so many places are out of stock.

She's getting anxious. And it feels like no one's paying attention outside groups of caregivers.

"This is such a situation where it's like life and death," she said. "Why isn't this an issue? I feel like moms are starting to freak out, and nobody else really sees it."

The White House has said it is using "every tool" it has to end the formula shortage — including working with manufacturers to boost production and offering transportation and logistics support — but in the meantime, parents and caregivers have been left to scour bare shelves for the food their kids need.

Pandemic-prompted supply chain disruptions were already squeezing the nationwide inventory of baby formula when the country's largest milk formula plant shuttered earlier this year due to safety issues.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Abbott Nutrition in February to shut down its facility in Sturgis, Michigan, when four babies suffered bacterial infections after consuming powdered formula from the plant. Two died.

Abbott then issued voluntary recalls of powdered formulas manufactured in the facility, which included popular brands like Similac, Alimentum and EleCare.

The company announced Monday it had entered into a legal agreement with the FDA to reopen the Sturgis plant. Production could resume at the facility within two weeks once federal regulators give the green light, but Abbott has said it could take six to eight weeks before formula is again available at stores.

"It's been stressful for me and for the baby," said Lisa Cox, who lives in Frederick with her 4-month-old girl. "We're trying to not feed her as much and letting her cry it out some more. We're trying to go further in between feedings and cutting her bottles in half, just so we don't run out."

"If we run out completely," she added, "what are we supposed to do?"

Cox is a member of the Formula Finders Facebook page, which Emmitsburg resident Kristina Marshall created this month to give local caregivers a place to share where they've found formula on shelves, swap or purchase canisters from each other and find community with other struggling parents.

The group now has close to 800 members, including employees from Giant and other Frederick supermarkets, who notify caregivers when shelves in their stores have been freshly stocked with formula.

Cox started by giving her daughter Similac to supplement breastfeeding, but switched to the Gentlease brand of Enfamil formula after the Abbott recall. She's been struggling to find it on shelves, since many parents depend on it to feed their babies with sensitive stomachs.

She took time off work Monday morning to drive an hour and a half to West Virginia to purchase four canisters of formula from someone she found on the Formula Finders Facebook page.

Cox also recently spent around $350 on seven 17-ounce cans of Enfamil formula at Frederick's Megamart. She estimates each can will last her baby about five days.

Though Cox said she can usually find canisters of the formula for $36 or $37 at Costco, Sam's Club and Walmart, they were about $50 at the Golden Mile supermarket.

Gas is also more expensive these days. The costs of the trips Cox has been taking to find food for her daughter are adding up.

"Hopefully it changes soon," she said.

On top of the stress of trying to find formula in empty stores, some moms feel guilty that they can't breastfeed their babies.

Tera Dunbar started breastfeeding her baby boy when he was born in December, but switched to formula when she started having some health problems.

"You feel like you have to explain yourself," said Dunbar, who lives in the Myersville area with her 4-month-old boy. "People don't understand, behind the scenes, some moms can't produce milk or they can't produce enough. ... There's just so many scenarios to cast judgment. Like, we're already feeling horrible as it is that we can't find formula."

But the Frederick Facebook page has been helpful, she said. That's how she learned supermarkets tend to restock on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. She's planning to take off work Wednesday morning and drive around in search of the Gerber formula her son uses.

Other moms expressed gratitude for the Facebook page, too. Mothers with older children who no longer use formula occasionally chime in, offering tips on where to find canisters.

Heather McCubbin is an active participant in the group, even though all of her kids are over 18. Whenever she's in Walmart, Target or a grocery store, she drops by the baby aisle to look for formula. When she can find a few cans, she buys them and gives them to caregivers. They pay her over Venmo or PayPal.

Another local mom, Caitlin Zuniga, recently posted on the Facebook page, offering her frozen breast milk. Her 13-month-old boy won't take a bottle, she said, and the milk would have gone bad in her freezer.

Instead, she gave it to the mom of a 5-month-old boy. It was just enough to last him five or six days, but it was something, she said.

She has five kids and is no stranger to breast milk or formula headaches.

"I can definitely commiserate with the folks who can't feed their kids," Zuniga said. "It's scary."

Still, some moms said the Facebook group sometimes leads to a rush on stores when someone posts a photo of shelves stocked with formula.

"It's kind of like a double-edged sword," said Plaza-Young, the mom of the 3-month-old allergic to milk protein.

Plaza-Young initially intended to breastfeed when she gave birth to her son. But after his allergy was diagnosed, she and her husband switched him to formula.

Now, she has a freezer full of breast milk that he can't drink. Sometimes, she worries she'll have to feed it to him if she and her husband run out of formula.

Babies with the same allergy as her son become really gassy and fussy when they have milk, she said. Some even get blood in their stool.

"I don't want to hurt him," she said. "But it's also like, he's going to have to eat."

But at the moment, Plaza-Young feels grateful that she and her husband have family helping them in their search. Her father-in-law recently found more hypoallergenic formula in a store near where he lives on the Eastern Shore and plans to drive it to his grandson in a few days.

As someone trained in social work, Plaza-Young keeps thinking about how the shortage will affect the mental health of moms in the long run. This situation is one that could cause a "trauma response" in people, triggering their "fight or flight" reaction, she said.

"We are mothers. We are responsible for protecting our babies and providing for them," Plaza-Young said. "Feeling that you're not able to do that is the most helpless and scary feeling."

"I'd be interested to see if there's going to be some lasting effects from this, even when formula starts coming back on the shelves," she continued. "If some moms are going to have some —"

She paused.

"I'm sorry, I'm at a loss of words right now."

follow Angela Roberts on Twitter: @24_angier