Analyzing the Effect of the 2022 Formula Shortage on Postpartum Parents' Feeding Decisions in an Urban Hospital...

In early 2022, more than 40% of the U.S. formula supply was out of stock due to product recalls and manufacturing plant shutdowns. While previous studies have explored parents' opinions on formula feeding in response to formula safety concerns and offered advice on adapting to the 2022 formula shortage, there is currently a lack of data assessing the relationship between the formula shortage and parents' feeding decisions. Our study aims to understand how new parents' feeding decisions were impacted in the aftermath of the 2022 formula shortage, in comparison to demographic factors and feeding methods with previous children. We hypothesized that parents may either exclusively breastfeed their new baby when they did not do so previously or breastfeed their new baby more frequently than they did previously due to the formula shortage. Ninety-nine postpartum parents were administered a Qualtrics survey during their admission at a private urban hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, and answered questions about demographics, feeding decisions with previous children, current feeding decisions, and how influential the formula shortage was on these decisions. Data was analyzed using chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. There is a significant relationship between parents' feeding decisions for previous children and feeding decisions for their new baby (p < 0.0001) but no significant influence of the formula shortage on feeding decisions for their new baby (p = 0.80). When making feeding decisions for their newborn, parents were more influenced by decisions with previous children than by the formula shortage, which highlights the importance of supporting parents with breastfeeding, especially for their first child.