“I Panicked” Nantucket Families Navigate Baby Formula Shortage, And The Island Factor

The nationwide baby formula shortage is causing stress and anxiety for families across the country. On Nantucket, where island residents are at the far end of the supply chain with limited retail options, the situation is even more dire.

Nantucket families don’t have the option of driving to the next town over to check the other grocery stores or a Walmart in search of formula. Instead, they are getting creative: tasking family members on the mainland to look for formula at stores in western Massachusetts or going off-island themselves to hunt it down. Others are scouring online pharmacies and Amazon, stockpiling if and when they can. The stress and the costs are adding up, island mothers told the Current over the past week.

Nantucket resident Estefany Brito, the mother of a four-month-old daughter who is mostly breast-fed but now needing formula as well, said she recently went to the customer service desk at the mid-island Stop & Shop to ask where she could get baby formula as the shelves were bare.

“I panicked when she said that there is a formula shortage and they have been ordering for weeks but there is no formula,” Brito said. “So I asked, ‘what are the moms doing?’ She said, ‘we keep getting calls everyday from moms asking for formula’ and since that day my anxiety started because my breast milk is not enough for my baby. I called a lactation consultant and they said ‘pump, pump, drink lots of water, nurse’ and I have been doing all that and still my milk supply is not enough to feed my baby. I keep seeing in the news that there is a formula shortage but they don't tell us what to do. I reached out to other moms and it’s the same: they are freaking out, going off-island everywhere to find formula and searching online.”

The nationwide shortage was brought on by the ongoing supply chain issues that have plagued numerous areas of the economy, coupled with the February shutdown of a factory in Michigan that makes Similac formula. The plant, owned by the company Abbott Nutrition, was closed amid contamination concerns that prompted a recall of its products. Those circumstances were exacerbated by the fact that the baby formula industry is heavily consolidated, as just three companies - Abbott, Reckitt, and Gerber - produce nearly all of the formula for the United States. During the first week of May, 43 percent of baby formula supplies at stores across the United States were out of stock, according to Datasembly.

“We have a lot of families on-island who are affected by the formula shortage,” said Alice Townsend-Williams, a nutritionist with Health Imperative’s Nantucket office. “Even before the Similac recall in February, there were intermittent shortage issues affecting WIC (the USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) clients and families that use formula. The recall exacerbated the situation, causing most brands to have supply issues. It has been very stressful for people who are just trying to feed their babies. If you can’t access formula and aren’t breastfeeding, there is no safe alternative. Babies should not drink cows’ milk before age one and homemade formulas are very dangerous. People have had to switch brands and types of formulas to kinds that their babies might not tolerate as well. Some people have spent a lot of money buying non- WIC contracted formula online.”

Those most at risk due to the shortage, child and family advocates say, are those with low incomes and infants with special dietary requirements due to allergies or disabilities.

Island resident Meri Lepore is navigating the situation with nine-month-old twin girls who have a dairy sensitivity. The specific type of formula they need was already in short supply before the recall in February. Since then she had been buying from an online pharmacy until they ran out of it as well.

“I do think it’s worse here on Nantucket,” said Lepore, a nurse practitioner and member of the Nantucket Board of Health. “I was good until Express Scripts ran out of it. If my mom went to see my brother in western Mass., she would look. I would look it up on Walmart to see where she could get it. We went off on Easter and looked in four different stores. Over the course of a week and a half I spent $500 on enough formula to last me about a month.”

Another island mother, Lydia Palka, who gave birth to her third daughter in January, said she has been working the online angle as much as possible to ensure she had enough supply. Even so, there have been challenges.

“I heard whispers of a possible shortage in November 2021,” Palka said. “So I decided to begin to purchase formula. I am on Subscribe & Save through Amazon. I signed up for two different kinds of formula because at least one of them is not available. I’ve been forced to buy a month’s supply every 2 to 3 weeks because the products are always so delayed. Luckily I am in a space where I barely make the cut every month. This month was cutting it very close because I was sent a month’s supply that expired a week from now. Luckily the other shipment came in. This shortage has really tested my skills in strategy but I’m blessed that I have the means to buy in bulk. I can’t imagine having to search week to week.”

Several Nantucket agencies are doing what they can to assist island families and partnering with non-profits on Cape Cod to acquire formula when and where they can. But that too has proven difficult amid the shortage.

“It’s very stressful for these moms,” said Elise Norton, the program manager at the Nantucket Family Resource Center. Norton’s agency had been partnering with A Baby Center, a non-profit on the Cape, to source baby formula to give away to those in need on the island.

“Even A Baby Center has a hard time getting it now,” Norton added. “They get us what they can, but they’re facing the same problems on the Cape. But unlike the Cape, our families don’t have multiple different stores they can go to to check for stock. We’re getting referrals from WIC, they have credits to buy it, but there’s just no formula available at the Stop & Shop.”

Julia Kehoe, the president and CEO of Health Imperatives, said her agency is most worried for those without the means to buy in bulk, travel off-island to search, and already working two to three jobs just cover their housing expenses on Nantucket. Adding a new layer of cost and complexity in finding baby formula is the last thing they need.

“What concerns us is the disparate impact this has on low income families,” Kehoe said. “That wealth gap is so extreme. What makes it more challenging for Nantucket is you don’t have other options. You dn’t drive store to store. Health Imperatives works on the South Shore, the South Coast, and the Cape and the Islands. There are other communities that have higher rates of poverty. But our biggest concern is always Nantucket because the cost of living is so extraordinary.”