CINCINNATI — As the formula shortage continues, more and more groups are impacted than meets the eye. For families of children with feeding tubes, it’s been a whole new kind of stressful.
This is the nightly routine for Lynnie Halenkamp, 2. Her adoptive parents, Laura and Nate, hook her up to feed her while she sleeps each night.
“She sleeps 10 hours, and she has food going into her stomach,” Nate said.
The machine is filled with two bottles of high-calorie formula like Pediasure to ensure she’s getting enough calories each day. But now, it’s hard to even find the right formula.
“Because of the shortage, we have two different types of formula,” Laura said. “So normally, she needs this because this has extra calories in it. But we can’t find this.”
Lynnie has Cystic Fibrosis and has struggled to gain weight her entire life. But gaining weight is especially important to fight off infections and keep her symptoms at bay.
“Nutrition with kids with CF (Cystic Fibrosis) is really important,” Laura said. “And as you can tell, she’s really tiny. But we’re doing the best we can to get her to gain weight at a decent rate for her.”
While Lynnie can mouth feed, she gets most of her nutrients through her g-tube and formula, which is why looking into their cabinets is so upsetting.
“We won’t get another shipment of this for another three weeks, so we’ll rely on getting the rest through WIC and currently as of today there is none,” Laura said.
While Lynnie acts and plays just like any other little girl, her parents always worry in the back of their minds.
“It’s been really stressful,” Nate said. “For two weeks, we didn’t hook her up because we couldn’t find any formula or any Ensure or anything like that.”
“It’s not been easy,” Laura said. “And driving everywhere trying to find it has also not been easy. It’s been really difficult.”
For now, they’ll have to ration the formula they do have to stretch as long as possible, something no parent ever wants to do.
“If we just do two boxes, this will give us about a week,” Laura said. “That gives us a little bit of extra tie to try and go out and find more.”
