Baby girl stuck in hospital due to formula shortage after weeks in NICU
With the formula shortage crippling the country, it's a scary and stressful time for mothers of babies and young children – and foster families are feeling the anxiety as much as anyone.
With the state in short supply, families are getting desperate for cans or tubs of formula, which last up to about 4 days for babies. Foster families, who rely on the state to help, are having a difficult time finding formula for their babies.
Ashley Harrington is fostering a baby girl who spent several weeks at Duke University Hospital's NICU unit. After so much time at the hospital, she was ready to take her baby girl home – but the formula shortage prevented them from leaving.
"We were not going to be discharged because we didn't have formula for her," says Harrington.
What should have been a celebration ended up as extra days of undue stress – as they called dozens of stores while waiting in the hospital with their baby.
"We found out who had a shipment, so we could go and pick it up," she says. "It took me four days."
First-time moms and now foster moms are not alone in this fight. Gail Osbourne, executive director with Foster Family Alliance of NC and a foster mom herself, says hundreds of foster babies in our state are impacted by the recent formula shortage.
"There is nothing like feeling like you can't find the right formula," she says.
Osbourne says traditionally foster families would have their needs taken care of through a WIC voucher – but the state is in short supply due to the Abbott plant closure.
"When that supply ended it banded us together as foster parents," says Osbourne.
Families took to Facebook to barter, borrow, lend – and try to find formula for foster families and fast.
"Next thing you know, foster families way out on the coast were sending formula to Wake County," says Osbourne. "Or someone in Durham was sending to Waynesville."
Both WakeMed and UNC Rex hospital said they have supplies of formula at the moment.
