Diana Feng, a mother in Douglaston, Queens, spent weeks this spring caught up in the frenzy of the ongoing infant formula shortage, refreshing store websites and asking friends to help her track down the Similac formula she needed to feed her 5-month-old daughter, Charlotte.
Then a friend told her about Judy.
Judy Cheung, in nearby Whitestone, is a packaging designer and first-time mother who also happens to be a super producer of breast milk. She has already donated 2,399 ounces to the New York Milk Bank, which mainly provides milk to hospitals for sick or premature infants. And yet she still had two full freezers of excess supply.
The friend asked Ms. Feng if she wanted any of Ms. Cheung’s extra milk. Ms. Feng, who has had difficulty breastfeeding, said she did. Before long, Ms. Feng had hundreds of ounces of gifted breast milk in her freezer, enough to supplement formula feedings for Charlotte — and enough to share with another mother she knew who was also struggling to find formula for her new infant.
“I was flabbergasted,” Ms. Feng, 31, said of the offer. “Because it’s not every day that someone offers breast milk, certainly not for free.”
While the Biden administration is taking emergency steps to end the formula shortage, including flying in formula from Europe, the problem appears to be worsening in the short-term as families stock up, reducing supply. Across retailers in the New York City metro area, 70 percent of infant formula was out of stock as of May 21, according to Datasembly, a retail data provider, in line with national trends.
The Abbott baby formula plant in Sturgis, Mich., whose closure and recall of its products sparked the crisis, plans to restart production on June 4, and start shipping a specialty formula, EleCare, around June 20. The Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Robert M. Califf, told the Senate recently that he expected supply to return to normal around the end of July.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the F.D.A. discourage the casual sharing of breast milk because of the risk that the milk may be contaminated with bacteria, viruses, medications or other substances. But some mothers, at their wits’ end, say that they need less guidance about what they can’t do and more advice about what they can do to feed their babies through the crisis.
As regular supply channels fail, the formula shortage has prompted a huge volunteer effort among parents to help other parents feed their babies.
In New York and across the country, parents are arranging formula exchanges where they post about their unneeded formula. Parenting groups on social media and text chains are sharing information about informal donations of breast milk and crowdsourced sightings of formula at stores. Formal breast milk banks are reporting an explosion in interest from potential donors.
While Ms. Feng had considered the risks of the donated milk, she said she felt comfortable in accepting it because Ms. Cheung is a friend of a friend who had passed rigorous health checks to donate to the milk bank. Baby formula, as the recall has shown, can also be dangerous, some mothers point out.
“At the hospital, when you give birth, there’s a lot of ‘breast is best,’” said Ms. Feng, who does breastfeed, but has low supply and has always needed to supplement with formula. “I think fed is best.”
For her part, Ms. Cheung says she is more than happy to help other parents at a moment of crisis, though she does feel at times as if she is constantly attached to her pump. She has begun to pump less now that her son, Adam, is 7 months old and has started solid food.
“My family calls me a cow,” she said. “Like literally. And it’s insulting and nice at the same time, you know?”
At the forefront of the effort in breast milk donation are mothers who have excess milk. Some were told to pump at an early stage of their baby’s life to increase their supply, which led their bodies to produce more milk than their baby consumed.
Pumping an extra bottle or two a day, they have been filling their freezers. And after hearing stories of other parents struggling to find formula amid the shortage, they became determined to try to use their stash to help.
Sharing breast milk is not uncommon, experts believe: A 2018 online survey of 456 U.S. mothers found that 12 percent had donated milk informally, and just under 7 percent had given their babies donated milk. (If a mother decides to take donor milk, experts recommend asking a potential donor a series of screening questions, as well as flash pasteurizing the milk.)
The safest way to access donated breast milk, doctors say, is via the 31 milk banks overseen by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. In order to donate, mothers have to fill out an extensive health questionnaire, pass a blood test to check for disease, and receive clearance from their doctor and their child’s pediatrician. At the bank, milk from various donors is blended, to even out the nutritional content. It is also pasteurized to kill any bacteria that may have sneaked in during storage or pumping.
The New York Milk Bank, a nonprofit located in Valhalla, can hold over 100,000 gallons, and is about 80 percent full. Between 60 percent and 80 percent of the milk goes to hospitals to feed sick and premature babies, and the rest goes to private clients. In the wake of the formula shortage, the milk bank has seen a spike in interest, particularly from potential donors.
“Usually I send out two applications a day,” said the executive director, Linda Harelick, one day last month. “Today I sent out 20.”
In recent weeks, milk requests have also grown — by about 20 percent, Ms. Harelick said. Some parents just want a few bottles to get them through the stressful first days before their milk fully comes in, while others are seeking months’ worth, if it’s available.
But buying milk from the bank is very expensive, underscoring one of the many ways the formula shortage has been tougher on lower-income mothers.
Without medical insurance, which in New York State usually only pays for breast milk for hospitalized babies, the milk costs $4.50 an ounce, to cover the bank’s operations, Ms. Harelick said. A newborn may drink between one and 12 ounces of milk a day in the first week of life, while a 6-month-old typically drinks at least 24 ounces a day.
In New York, a doctor’s prescription is officially required to buy breast milk privately, with a wide range of diagnoses that qualify, including health complications, low milk supply, adoption and infant allergies.
Mothers have been spreading the word about the milk bank. Lucie Fink, a 29-year-old mother and social media content producer who lives in Manhattan, recently donated 150 ounces of her milk to the bank and made a TikTok video to show how easy donation was. It has already gotten nearly a million views, with commenters from around the country thanking her.
Chelsey Baranek, 33, who is in the process of getting certified to donate to the bank, said that once she gives her initial 100 ounces, the minimum donation, she plans to continue pumping to give more to help. She lives in East Islip, Long Island, and her daughter, Anna, is 7 months old.
“Just as long as I’m feeding her, and I have extra supply to do so, I would love to be able to contribute to the cause,” she said, adding that she hopes she will have about four ounces a day to donate.
As for Ms. Cheung, she was actually concerned that she wouldn’t have enough milk when Adam was born, since he arrived by cesarean section, which can lead to a delay in milk coming in. A nurse in the hospital advised her to use a breast pump every two hours, as well as for 10 minutes after every feed, to increase supply.
Adam, it turned out, was a snacker. So in the early weeks, she pumped almost every hour. By the time he was several months old, she could produce as many as eight extra bottles in addition to what she fed him in a day, she said.
While she found it annoying to pump so frequently, she said it didn’t hurt. In fact, it hurt to leave the milk in place. So she kept going, though she has gradually increased the amount of time between pumping sessions to four to seven hours to accommodate working full-time.
When she filled a second freezer she bought this winter just for the milk, her husband, Robert, urged her to start donating. He helps her store the milk and keeps a careful ledger — she calls him her milk broker. They have delivered about 1,000 ounces to a milk bank collection point at Jamaica Hospital, and have also sent some 1,400 ounces to the milk bank in Valhalla.
As the formula shortage worsened, interest in her milk grew among mothers who heard about her oversupply.
In mid-May, Ms. Feng shared about half of the 200 ounces she received from Ms. Cheung with her friend Margaret Lum to feed her 5-week-old daughter, Phoebe. Ms. Lum was unable to get her breast milk started, so the hospital had provided her with donor breast milk and Enfamil NeuroPro formula for Phoebe. Once home, Phoebe continued on the formula, but Ms. Lum had only managed to purchase about three weeks worth because of the shortage.
Now Ms. Lum has more than 20 bottles of Ms. Cheung’s milk in her freezer, and has started visiting her directly to replenish her stock. The gift has eased her worries.
“Phoebe feeds 24 ounces a day,” she said. “So for us to give her six ounces of breast milk per day, and not have to use the limited supply of NeuroPro, feels really great.”
She’s also hoping that some immunity from Ms. Cheung’s Covid-19 vaccination passes through the milk, at a time when babies still face risk from the disease. “I feel so grateful to Judy,” she said.
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