Lower-income women often live paycheck to paycheck, rely on public benefits to buy formula and wouldn't have had the financial resources to stock up on formula "months ago, when they saw this coming," she said.
"It’s a huge, huge problem," said Sophia Bosse, a registered dietician and certified lactation counselor with Cradle Cincinnati Connections, a support to Cradle Cincinnati, which provides resources and education to pregnant people and new moms in efforts to curb infant mortality. "We’ve definitely got quite a few families having trouble not only finding their baby’s formula but also another, equivalent formula."
Bosse said a lot of the clients receive a supplemental nutrition benefit through WIC, the Women, Infants and Children program, which distributes about half the infant formula in the United States. But that doesn't guarantee enough formula for their babies.
WIC often comes with guidelines that say what brand and how much of infant formula a mother can purchase at a time.
The program gives families vouchers to purchase formula, said Janelle McClain, executive director of Cincinnati-based nonprofit Breastfeeding Outreach for Our Beautiful Sisters. If the formula is not available, moms may have to use their regular food assistance card to buy formula at another store, and that compounds problems of affording other groceries for their families, she said.
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