Tri-City parents’ desperate search for baby formula will break your heart. Help if you can

At 6 months old, Jessica Sans Souci’s baby boy should be playing with his toys, but instead he’s wearing socks on his little hands.

The Kennewick mom said that’s the only way she can keep him from scratching the eczema on his face. It’s a condition that has flared ever since the shortage of baby formula made it impossible for her to find the one product he can take without having a reaction.

He was in and out of the hospital when he was first born until it was finally determined that baby Oakland’s system can’t handle dairy products.

But the powdered formula that works best for him hasn’t been available for weeks, and the substitute Sans Souci is trying makes him break out in itchy patches on his face.

Trying to find the brand her baby needs or the even the less-suitable substitute has been a nightmare.

Sans Souci, like millions of other parents across the country, is constantly on the lookout for formula.

It consumes her day.

Oakland needs Similac Pro Sensitive and Sans Souci said she hasn’t been able to find the cans of powder anywhere. It’s not in stores and it’s not available online.

Sometimes she can get small bottles of it, but a six-pack only lasts a little over two days.

So she has had to settle for what she can get and what Oakland’s digestive system can manage — even if it irritates his skin.

One helpful tool in her ongoing hunt for formula is the Find My Formula Tri-Cities, WA Facebook page, which she checks constantly.

This website and others like it around the country were started by frantic parents trying to help make sure no baby starves.

It gives parents who are down to their last can of formula a way to reach out and ask for help. It also provides an easy way to let people know when stores have been restocked with formula.

Although Sans Souci says that once photos of full shelves are posted, there’s a good chance they will be empty again by the time parents get to the store.

“You have to rush out,” she said.

Mac Jaehnert, of Richland, knows all too well the feeling of searching from store to store for formula and finding only empty shelves. The Social Media and Community Manager for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is an administrator of the Tri-Cities Find My Formula Facebook page.

His daughter, MacKenzie, was born three months early in December at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, and then moved to Seattle Children’s Hospital and then back to Kadlec.

She spent more than 100 days in neonatal intensive care before she was allowed to go home March 21. Jaehnert said he and his wife, Emily, were told it was critical that the baby be fed Similac NeoSure and no other.

Because of MacKenzie’s fragile condition, she needs more nutrients than breast milk can provide, and NeoSure is specially formulated to help premature babies catch up on their growth.

In addition, Mac Jaehnert said they were told to fortify MacKenzie’s feedings, which means mixing in extra powder.

And that, of course, means they go through the formula more quickly.

As if new parents didn’t have enough stress, supply chain problems and the temporary closure of a formula manufacturer in Michigan led to alarming shortages of the sole food source for infants across the country.

Jaehnert said it wasn’t long before the supply of NeoSure dried up in the Tri-Cities.

He would have to hit several stores day after day in order to find enough formula for his daughter. Often, he would strike out completely.

Whenever MacKenzie had an appointment in Seattle, he would scour the Puget Sound area looking for formula, paying attention to Seattle’s formula-finding Facebook page.

One day while at a Seattle appointment he drove all the way to Bremerton just to get one can.

The family’s plight made national news, including features on Good Morning America, The Washington Post and on CNN, where Mac Jaehnert said he put 1,000 miles on his car looking for the formula his baby requires.

As it happens, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., will be part of a hearing on Thursday, May 26, to discuss the formula crisis, and her team is planning to highlight the Jaehnert’s struggle during the discussion.

Fortunately for the Jaehnerts, the national attention has prompted an outpouring of compassion from others and now they are well stocked, he said.

But there are many, many parents still desperate for help.

This situation is an epic governmental fail that should never have happened in the first place. But it did.

What matters most now is getting formula to the babies who need it.

For too long it has been primarily parents in need of formula helping others in the same boat.

More of us can do our part. I haven’t been down the baby aisle for years, but I plan on making the detour next time I shop to see if I can grab a can of formula for someone who needs it.

And I’ll especially be on the lookout for Similac Pro Sensitive.

Baby Oakland needs to get those socks off his hands so he can play with his toys.

This story was originally published May 26, 2022 at 7:58 AM.