Exploring the Experiences of Families Impacted by the 2022 Commercial Milk Formula (CMF) Food Insecurity Crisis in the United States of America: A Scoping Review.
Emily Jansch, Marjorie Atchan, Maryam Bazargan
PMID 41883107WHAT IT FOUND
Parents struggled to feed infants during the U.S. formula shortage, with anxiety, guilt, and unsafe practices such as diluting formula or rationing feeds.
Nurses should ask about formula access and feeding changes at postpartum and newborn contacts.
Key findings
01Parents and caregivers reported anxiety, depression, fatigue, guilt and shame, along with time and money spent searching for formula.
02In a survey of 99 U.S. parents, use of at least one unsafe infant feeding practice increased from 8% before the shortage to 48.5% during it.
03Parents attempting breastfeeding or relactation encountered little support, including reduced postpartum services and parental leave constraints.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The review reports parents' experiences and self-reported feeding practices, not measured infant health outcomes. Most included sources were news articles with interviews and did not identify a research methodology, so they may not represent all affected families. Only English-language sources and news publications with readership over 1 million were eligible, which may exclude smaller, multilingual or local accounts. Included samples varied widely, from one person to 1070 respondents, and the review was designed to map experiences rather than establish how common each practice was or whether any intervention prevented harm.
Declared interests
Funding came from the SYNERGY Nursing & Midwifery Research Centre and the ACT Health Directorate. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the formula shortage caused specific infant harm. The review reports parents' experiences and self-reported feeding practices, not infant health outcomes.