In the middle of a severe baby formula shortage, many have suggested mothers should simply switch to breastfeeding. Carla Cevasco, Ph.D., breaks down why that may not be possible.
By Chandni G
May 17, 2022
The United States is currently experiencing a severe shortage of baby formula. It has been nearly three months since the major formula manufacturer Abbott pulled its products off shelves after four infants may have fallen ill from bacterial infections, and two died. This, coupled with supply chain challenges and labor shortages, has resulted in a national formula out-of-stock percentage of 43%, US News reports. Amid the supply gap, many have suggested that mothers should simply switch to breastfeeding as they did in the past. However, as Carla Cevasco, Ph.D., illustrates in her now-viral Twitter thread, this may not be the brilliant idea people think it is.
"You may be hearing the argument that before the rise of modern commercial infant formula, babies all ate breastmilk and everything was great," she begins. "As a historian of infant feeding, let me tell you why that’s not true... First of all, throughout history, people have at times needed to feed infants using foods other than breastmilk." Cevasco goes on to list several reasons, including how sometimes the birthing parent was unable to breastfeed owing to death in childbirth, physical/mental health concerns or the need to return to work outside the home right after childbirth.
Notably, she highlights one imperative reason: When a mother's partner or enslaver forced them not to breastfeed so that they could return to fertility as soon as possible after giving birth. Cevasco continues, "Sometimes baby was unable to breastfeed. Because [of] poor latch, prematurity, cleft palate, [or] other health or disability reasons. Sometimes baby was being cared for by carers other than [the] birthing parent, including adoptive parents." She then answers what alternatives mothers resorted to when they could not breastfeed. "Sometimes someone else would breastfeed the child," she says. "This might have been a relative or neighbor doing it for free. Or it might have been a paid or unpaid servant or enslaved person doing it at the expense of their own nursing infant, who might starve to death as a result."
However, she highlights, feeding a baby other people’s breastmilk was not necessarily an ideal situation either, given the power dynamics of race, class and gender in the past. In other cases, babies thrived on alternative diets. Cevasco shares, for example, "Wabanaki women in the 18th century sometimes fed infants a mixture of boiled walnuts, cornmeal, and water; an English colonist, Elizabeth Hanson, reported that her baby thrived on this diet. In early modern Europe, babies often ate pap or panada, mixtures of animal milk or water, bread crumbs, or flour. Sometimes these were boiled, sometimes they were not." Unfortunately, these substitutes were not always safe or nutritionally complete.
"So before the advent of modern commercial formula (in the 1950s), a lot of babies died of illness or starvation because they couldn’t breastfeed and the alternative foods were not safe or adequate," she says. She reiterates the need for access to things like paid parental leave, free lactation consultants and breastfeeding education, pumping rooms and the right to breastfeed in public to encourage more mothers to breastfeed. Nonetheless, in the absence of such access, baby formula fills a crucial gap. "Let’s not demonize formula because of an imagined past in which everyone breastfed," she concludes. "In the ACTUAL past, babies starved and died of disease. Babies who would have survived today, because they would have had access to safe, nutritionally complete formula."
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20 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Wow, this baby formula shortage is a serious concern! It's fascinating to learn from Carla Cevasco's Twitter thread that breastfeeding wasn't always an option throughout history. Our parents and ancestors managed without those formulas, but times have changed, and we need safe alternatives now. It's essential to have access to breastfeeding education and support, but we also shouldn't demonize formula. In today's world, it's a lifesaver for many babies. Still, you can find baby food online, which might be helpful during these shortages.
Lenotmve
Level 2
July 24, 2023
1
I don't think as many people are suggesting this as the backlash suggests. Anyone who knows about breast feeding realizes you can't "turn it back on."
It does make a good thing to have people yell about rather than the money politics inequality issues of it all.
I have seen many people suggest it's bad that out country forces women out of breastfeeding in the first place. And get lashed back at for it.
MsAl
Level 8
May 21, 2022
1
Once lactation has ceased, it would be difficult to restart it if one hasn't nursed the baby from birth.
Deb57
Level 8
May 20, 2022
3
You do realize that IF your comment is addressed at me you are " preaching to the choir" so to speak?
I may well be a man, a male but I am a qualified Mid-wife with a tally of 167 deliveries under my belt.
TheoryNumber3
Level 8
May 19, 2022
4
As a father, a qualified Nurse and a qualified Mid-wife I think a mother breast-feeding her baby is the most beautiful sight on the planet.
There is a solution to this Shortage of Baby Formulas and it was trailed and successful, VERY successful in Australia in 2000, it was simply called the Baby Milk Bank where breast-feeding mothers who, as does happen, produces way, way more milk per day than their baby needs can EXPRESS it, sterilize it, place it in sterile containers, freeze it and then have it collected and distributed, anonymously to mothers who are either struggling to breast-feed or to be used to REPLACE Commercial Milk Formulas.
Has anyone considered/wondered just how many litres of Human Breast milk goes to waste on a world-wide basis per annum?
Triphid
Level 9
May 19, 2022
3
I always felt that I could have nursed twins, I produced a great deal of milk.
@HippieChick58 Then you would been yet another recruit for Baby Milk Bank services then.
This is NO exaggeration nor a joke either BUT when Lorrae and I were staying at R.M.H. in Adelaide in 2000, there were 3 new mothers staying at R.M.H. who were both feeding their own Premie babies in hospital as well as supplying the new service with an average daily amount of 7 fluid ounces of breast milk each per day.
We all laughed when one new Mum stated that "when she got married and until she fell pregnant she had to PAD OUT her pairs of training bra so she did not look quite so boyish, now she has UDDERS like a Dairy cow and needs to milked twice a day as well as feeding her baby."
@Triphid My first baby was born in semi rural Louisiana, and I doubt they had any organized Baby Milk bank services, and we moved when she was 6 weeks old, In fact, I moved when I was nursing all three of my kids. I pumped and froze my milk for future feedings if I thought I'd have to miss a feeding but was never able to get connected to any milk banks.
@HippieChick58 The idea of starting a " Milk Bank" as far as I am aware came from a group of ne Mums in Adelaide, South Australia in mid. December 1999, so I sincerely doubt that such a thought and community minded idea would be something to arise in the seemingly selfish and self-centred minds of the larger percentages of Americans, would you not agree?
@Triphid Actually I had heard of milk banks when I was pregnant, and first child was born in 1984. Soooo I Googled it:
1910 – The first milk bank in the United States opened in Boston, MA on a “floating hospital” kept in the harbor to keep the nursing women and infants away from disease.
1984 – Mothers’ Milk Bank was established in Denver, CO.
1985 – Mothers’ Milk Bank joined St. Luke’s Hospital.
1985 – The Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) was established to provide evidenced-based guidelines and standards for the industry.
@HippieChick58 I stand somewhat corrected as well as amazed that imo such a seemingly self-centred peoples as the U.S. is so oft to portray itself can ACTUALLY think up something so beneficial for and towards others.
@Triphid Yeah, keep in mind that was 40ish years ago. I think we're devolving. One of my kids is so disgusted with the US she is researching moving to the Netherlands, or Germany.
This is what happens when we allow monopolies to exist. Of course, if there was no FDA there would be plenty of [salmonella tainted] baby formula.
And thank trump and the America First crowd for making it illegal to import baby formula.
BitFlipper
Level 8
May 19, 2022
1
The difference there being that the F.D.A. supervises, to some extent, the production, storage, etc, ONLY of the end product whereas the Commercial Firms are the ones setting the prices, etc, etc, and controlling the markets.
Imo, something as VITAL as milk to feed babies and infants SHOULD NOT let in the Greedy and Controlling hands of Private companies, etc, etc.
@Triphid there is a large population who want anarchy and no FDA. I'm speaking to them.
@BitFlipper That may be so BUT I am by no means an Anarchist, ergo, IF you don't mind me say so, you are wasting your words by posting in reply to my comment are you not.
My mother fed both my sister and I with Pet evaporated milk. She added Karo syrup to it and hot water to dilute a little. She could not breastfeed and that’s what the midwife told her to feed us. I breastfed both my sons, and in fact had so much milk I pumped and froze it. Some women simply can’t nurse, so it’s imperative that this situation gets fixed NOW, and get back to regulating these companies heavily again!
Redheadedgammy
Level 9
May 19, 2022
3
Yes, sadly and most unfortunately there are women out there for their breast are little more than a useless appendage that SHOULD be performing the task that evolution designed them but genetics, etc, deemed things for them to be otherwise.
@Triphid It really is so hard on the women who find they can’t breastfeed. I was a champion breast feeder according to my doc at the time. I had so much milk I had to pump and freeze it. That turned out good because I was able to donate my milk to a hospital that needed it for premature babies. I still have some nice letters from mothers whose babies my breast milk helped to live.
@Redheadedgammy Hey, as a Mid-wife we learned and understood all of these things.
As a retired Mid-wife I can hear the cries and wails of the " I want to have baby but will not breastfeed it because it will cause my lovely boobs to sag" set ringing out almost everywhere.
Oh those poor hard done by Prima Donna Mothers-to-be and the traumas they , must face and endure.
Solution to their "enormous (not) " problem, DO NOT have sex.
As to the horrors and heartaches rife in countries where water is a drink if thirsty but you put your health and possibly, life at risk every time you do then We of the so-called " Civilised Western world (imo another BIG joke) should cease sitting on our arses, get up and VERBALLY force the Powers that Be to ACTUALLY address the disasters in those countries and start doing something OTHER than spewing out the same old tired and worn out rhetoric and dishing out money to possibly corrupt Political Leaders in those countries and, instead, ENSURE that the goods, etc, NEEDED there are delivered in person to those who truly need and deserve them.
Triphid
Level 9
May 18, 2022
3
Before about 45 years ago, there was no "formula"!
There was Mama or evaporated milk & water, filling bottles that got boiled to sterilize them, if you are over 50 or so, that's what you were given, period.
And does anybody remember how Nestlé promoted their powdered formula everywhere in rural Africa where there was no clean water to mix it with, resulting in Many infant deaths? Becuz there was no profit motive, of course....
AnneWimsey
Level 9
May 18, 2022
7
One of the current Nestle spawn is quoted as saying that safe water is not a human right.
Given as it is their policy to pollute natural safe water and then make plants to sell bottled water they "fix."
Breastfeeding is the best way
bobwjr
Level 10
May 18, 2022
1
Not always.
Latch a parasite to you for a few hours a day and tell me how optimum it is.
@BufftonBeotch Breastfeeding give nourishment and antibodies to the infant
@bobwjr Only if the woman is well nourished unstressed and able. Even with the best of intentions infections can set in.
Or any number of reasons. It can really hurt for one thing.
And sometimes, the body just doesn't produce the milk needed. My granddaughter cried nonstop for her first 2weeks and lost weight while my daughter was nursing her. She was starving!! Mom continued to pump and supplemented with formula and became a happy baby. Mom kept pumping the entire year and supplemented as needed, despite several instances of clogged, infected and very painful milk ducts, because she's tougher and more determined than most. Breastfeeding may be best, but we need to be sure we aren't shaming moms who just can't do it for whatever reason.
Not every woman can breastfeed, and not every woman wants to. Some women NEED to stay employed and their jobs don't allow for that. Be it time, space to pump, the pump itself and a way to store the milk. It gets really complicated. Not every baby can take mother's milk, my grandchildren have a milk allergy. So, yes, I breastfed all my kids, but I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) and could keep baby near me allllll the damn time. My kids don't have that luxury.
@HippieChick58 And then even if you are successfully doing it when you try to have a nice night out hear any thing randomly like a baby crying your boobs might start squirting.
@BufftonBeotch BTDT! I should have been a wet nurse, I had plenty of milk.
@bobwjr The antibodies are mostly in the first milk, known as the colostrum. After that, it's just milk.
@BufftonBeotch Oh PLEASE do expound your comments re-breastfeeding, share with us mere dullard Mortals you great and boundless wisdom regarding the act breastfeeding etc, that your have done so often and so perfectly in your life.
Imo, and going by the dearth and volume of your wise comments I assume that you are a mother of numerous children, would that be so?
@Triphid Huh? Two kids. The first fairly successful. The second I tried but had a number of infections and could not produce enough milk.
I have generally urged mothers I have closely known to try for a few weeks to at least transfer the immunity. But it is an extremely personal choice.
I remember the breastfeeding being much easier. No bottles to prepare and get them the right temp.
Just get that tit near their mouth.
They'll take it from there.
@BufftonBeotch well done 2 children, well being only a man and a MALE Mid-wife sadly I have only helped to deliver some 167 babies into this world and been a mere father to 3 and a SOLE parent to 1 almost from when she was 1 week old, those children being a son to a previous partner, a son to my wife (divorced in 1995 btw,) who died aged app. at 24 weeks during pregnancy and my daughter, Lorrae, whom I lost to Lymphoma, aged 16 years on January 7th, 2001 with me at her hospital bedside, as I was for the entire period from diagnosis, chemotherapy, etc, etc,.
So I guess that my being just a mere MALE, Mid-wife and a father just cannot match up to you ever so vast, extensive and superior knowledge in regards to breast-feeding, etc, etc, then?
@Triphid I've said everyone really needs to decide what is best for themselves and their baby on their own. I don't know where I have attacked any woman's personal choices.
@BufftonBeotch Did I ACTUALLY say in so many words that you had done so?
I think NOT.
The mere suggestion that any particular woman can "turn on the faucet" shows total ignorance of biology.
Alienbeing
Level 8
May 18, 2022
8
A mother needs to be well nourished and not mentally stressed.
All the things that could help us avoid
undue reliance on a manufacturing supply chain, such as paid parental leave, free lactation consultants and breastfeeding education, pumping rooms and the right to breastfeed in public to encourage more mothers to breastfeed, these things have all been proposed by Democrats and shot down by Republicans. Just sayin.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
May 18, 2022
4
In my generation most babies were not breastfed. More and more breast milk is found to contain toxins (like mercury from eating seafood). Cow milk is not even close to human milk and looking into this issue for a comment I once made listed Zebra milk as most like human. Just one more, of an increasing list of a valued resources, that are dwindling. Our demands have become insatiable and we need to recognize this basic fact. Pointing fingers only makes matters worse.
JackPedigo
Level 9
May 18, 2022
4
There is a physician I work with that wears portable pumps WHILE PERFORMING bronchoscopic procedures. Granted, maybe not everyone's insurance would cover said device, but a quick glance shows you can get a pump like this for as little as 4 interest free payments of $75. Considering Smartasset estimates formula costs between $5-10k for the first year, that pump is a STEAL even without any insurance, so I don't think "had to return to work" should have been included in this list of reasons as valid as the other reasons are.
ChestRockfield
Level 8
May 18, 2022
3
Yes, these should definitely be covered by insurance. My son in law got my daughter portable pumps for a reasonable price- they aren't the greatest, but since she had to pump exclusively as her supply was unstable and she could never be sure how much baby was getting, it sure made her life easier to not have to be tied down for 30 minutes every 3-4 hours.
Nestle` is infamous for encouraging women of developing to use formula. Mixed with unclean water or diluted to save money was the result. Women might be encouraged to breast feed as to reserve formula for those with issues in breast feeding. Perhaps women might share their milk with others via wet nursing or pumping & preserving milk. Infrastructure & women's cooperation would be needed. I grew up on soy milk, so that might be an option regarding a dearth of formula.
Mooolah
Level 8
May 18, 2022
2
Telling women to "just go back to breastfeeding" is yet another example of the abject ignorance of far too many Americans.
A baby formula shortage is a national emergency.
Personally, I think it requires action similar to what FDR did in WWII.
It didn't take that long for manufacturers to change over to building the weapons of war.
Instead of making viagra and botox, those manufacturers should have to change their production to baby formula.
Oh wait, republicans need those things more.
This whole thing is so bloody stupid.
Can't keep formula on store shelves, but they're demanding women have more babies, whether they can feed them or not.
So. Much. Bullshit.
KKGator
Level 9
May 18, 2022
6
Or more easily the companies that supply the powder supplements to gyms.
And at close to the cost of production.
There is no way a company should be making hundreds of times markups on such a vital product.
I was astounded to learn what formula costs off the shelf nowadays.
Yes. Many people in the US qualify for WIC. But that means the companies are gouging tax dollars.
@BufftonBeotch I just love how people in need are always told to apply for this or that.
Applications for anything take time to process, and are always subject to rejection.
Just tell all those hungry babies to wait.
Btw, great idea to engage powdered supplement manufacturers.
I hadn't even thought of that.
@KKGator There is no way a base cost for infant formula should be 5 -10K a year.
It is powered milk or soy with some vitamins. That should be pennies to the ounce
@BufftonBeotch I'll go further. If state governments are going to force women to give birth, baby formula and diapers should be provided for free.
If the states want to force gestation and birth, they should have to pick up ALL the attendant costs. All of them.
@KKGator They want to end public schools and only educate the serf class to obedience level.
@BufftonBeotch This is how people can become radicalized.
It's pathetic that they don't realize this.
@KKGator 100% agree with the state having to cover costs of forced babies. Of course, you're talking to someone who thinks women with forced pregnancies should continue to do whatever they would normally be doing including drinking alcohol in any desired quantity and frequency, taking any and all legal drugs they want, full-contact sports, fasting or any other diet choice they desire, etc.
As for the base cost argument it's funny how many people in this country (not suggesting you're one of them mind you) tout the wonders of a free market economy until they come face to face with the consequences of a free market. In the words of the economist Brandon Mayhew, "The price is the price, yo." And a free market is exactly what will get you there, simple supply and demand with no regulation. Imagine, on the other hand, how nice it would be if stuff like necessary utilities were publicly owned, run, and delivered equitably, at cost. No gouging, no wasted money on advertising, and most notably, no reason for hundreds of fuckin' solicitation calls a day from motherfuckers trying to get you to change suppliers.
@BufftonBeotch I have to imagine there's got to be more to it than that. If there is ever that huge of a mark up on something, people will continue to undercut them. It's how you have product lines like those that fill Aldi shelves. I wouldn't be surprised if industry standards and regulations for safety and quality (considering the fragility of the customer base in question) adds a significant cost to the product.
As a Mid-wife let me explain that WHEN available BREAST MILK is best for babies since the human body makes it to SUIT another human body and that IS a medical fact.
Sadly, the Fashion Houses began to deem BREATS as being necessary parts of the fashion and image of a woman and that breasts that were once used to feed a child were no longer sexually appealing, etc, etc, and the women, well a great number of them at least, fell for that garbage rhetoric like carrion feeders on a corpse.
@Triphid I don't know any woman who didn't breastfeed, if she could, because she was worried about what it would do to her appearance. Not one.
I do know several who couldn't, but those were for medical reasons.
I'm not saying that your assertion is completely unfounded, but in my experience, I've not known any woman who used that as an excuse not to breastfeed her child. Not a single one.
@KKGator Sadly as both a Mid-wife ( yep a MALE Mid-wife ) and as a parent I have met quite a few who REFUSED to breast-feed because, quote, " I do NOT want my beautiful breast to dragged down by some kid sucking on them."
Those words have stuck in my mind for decades and annoy me even to this day because, to put it simply, I WOULD have given ANYTHING to be able to actually feed my new-born daughter from a breast rather than a bottle when her own 'mother' flatly REFUSED to feed the poor little child.
There need to be more suppliers of formula so that it is not a near monopoly charging ridiculous prices and not even caring if their equipment is contaminated and killing babies.
And many people in the United States no longer have access to safe drinking water as supplies are contaminated by things such as unhindered toxic dumping into waters and fracking and we lurch as a nation to 3rd world status to serve the oligarchy.
BufftonBeotch
Level 8
May 18, 2022
4
And yet people continue to think it's a great idea to bring more children into this fucked up world. I'll never understand.
@ChestRockfield Thank you for speaking what should be obvious for this group.
@ChestRockfield Yes, but you don't get to make that decision. All you can do is prevent your own seed from spreading. Each woman gets to make that decision for herself, or at least for now.
@HippieChick58 I'm not trying to. I will, when I can, vote against legislation that incentivizes having more children though.
Also, relying on only 4 producers in the US, and putting high tariffs on imported (Canadian) formula isn't conducive for costs or for continuous production (one company got shut down due to safety). BTW, Trump put the tariffs on Canada in place; I don't know why Biden hasn't tried pulling them.
Beowulfsfriend
Level 9
May 18, 2022
3
Biden is fuckin' slow as molasses. Don't get me wrong, he already did the greatest thing an American president has ever done, but christ. He should have had signing statements and executive orders staked the fuck up waiting for Jan 20th.
Not all mothers are able to breast feed. This is a big problem that formula makers thought they had solved. They learned quickly that mixing formula with "good clean water" did not work. Everybody did not have water or clean water. Without a substitute food babies would die.
DenoPenno
Level 9
May 18, 2022
7
True, very so sadly TRUE unfortunately BUT those who can should, IMO, make good use of what evolution gave them NOT for having Flashy Tits to show off in bikini tops, etc, etc, or stuff full of silicon implants so they do NOT succumb to the most natural thing in life,, sagging flesh, but utilise them for what they are, Ready Supplies of SAFE and perfect formula Milk based nutrients for their baby/babies.
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