Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll look at a growing movement in New York City and around the country to help mitigate the impact of a baby formula shortage by donating breast milk. And we'll learn about one of the many families of autistic teenagers who have struggled to care for them during the pandemic. |
 | | Sarah Blesener for The New York Times |
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Since the pandemic began, New Yorkers have found many new ways to help their neighbors: community refrigerators, grocery runs, check-ins. Now, a national baby formula shortage is supersizing another form of mutual aid: donating breast milk. |
Some new mothers produce more milk than others, and some find it easier than others to pump their milk. Organizations like the New York Milk Bank have long provided donated milk to hospitals and the parents of sick and premature infants. |
Now, demand is growing among parents who are simply trying to feed their babies any way they can, my colleague Sharon Otterman reports. Across retailers in the metropolitan New York City area, 70 percent of infant formula was out of stock as of May 21, according to Datasembly, a provider of retail data. That was in line with national trends. |
Milk requests to the New York Milk Bank have risen about 20 percent in recent weeks, and requests to donate are also increasing, Linda Harelick, the executive director, said recently. |
"Usually I send out two applications a day," Ms. Harelick said. "Today I sent out 20." |
In New York and other parts of the United States, parents are arranging formula exchanges where they post about their unneeded formula. Parenting groups are sharing information on social media and text chains about informal breast milk donations and crowdsourced sightings of formula at stores. |
Formal breast milk banks like the Human Milk Banking Association of North America report an explosion in interest in their services. Donors fill out extensive health questionnaires, take blood tests to check for disease and receive clearance from their doctors. The milk is blended and pasteurized. |
More informal kinds of sharing milk are also on the rise. Parents who once might have been leery about the practice say they need less guidance about the dangers and more advice about solutions. (Doctors recommend disinfecting breast milk donated informally by placing bottles in a pan of boiling water very briefly.) |
Judy Cheung of Whitestone, Queens, is a packaging designer and first-time mother who also happens to be a super-producer of breast milk. So far, she has donated 2,399 ounces to the New York Milk Bank. And she still had two freezers full of excess supply. |
Diana Feng, of Douglaston, Queens, had been refreshing store websites for weeks in hopes of finding formula for her 5-month-old daughter, Charlotte. Then she heard through a friend that Ms. Cheung had milk to spare. |
"I was flabbergasted," Ms. Feng, 31, said. "Because it's not every day that someone offers breast milk, certainly not for free." |
"My family calls me a cow," Ms Cheung said. "Like literally. And it's insulting and nice at the same time, you know?" |
Prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms from the afternoon through the evening, with patchy fog. Temps near 80 will drop to the mid-60s at night. |
In effect until Monday (Shavuot). |
 | | Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times |
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Everyone agrees they're in crisis, but parents who need help with autistic teenagers wait month after month. |
 | | Libby March for The New York Times |
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Joseph Goldstein, who covers health care in the New York area, had long heard about teenagers with various health concerns who essentially lived in hospitals and emergency rooms because their needs often overwhelmed parents at home. Many of these teenagers were autistic. |
After the pandemic hit, Joe wanted to see how the disruption it caused was hitting these families. He learned about Crystol and Jeremy Benedict and their 13-year-old daughter, Sabrina. |
I talked to Joe about the time he spent chronicling the Benedicts' quest to help Sabrina for this article. He visited the family and kept in touch for months. He watched and listened as Sabrina's parents managed the daily upsets and meltdowns, which had become difficult, and even dangerous, to handle, since she had grown bigger and stronger than both of them. |
What's the most revealing thing about the family's situation? |
What really struck me is that there are hundreds of these families like the Benedicts who are clearly in crisis, and they're surrounded by an array of organizations and agencies that know they're in crisis and agree that something needs to be done, but nothing happens for months and sometimes years. |
There's this disconnect between what government agencies agree on and the family's experience — hourslong struggles many times each week, sometimes on roadsides, often involving multiple police officers, often in the freezing cold. |
Why did the pandemic make things worse? |
In March 2020 people's routines and structures collapsed — routines that are even more crucial to autistic kids. One Brooklyn dad's son could not accept that school was closed. Until his father would drive him and show him that his school was not open, he would not move on with the day. This would repeat on many days. |
So there's always been more demand than spots at residential schools that can be ideal for some kids with bigger needs like Sabrina, but that has become a bigger mismatch now, because there are more families in crisis. It takes years, and in the Benedicts' case, the father had to quit his job. |
Is there fear that involving the police could lead to kids being shot? |
There was definitely the fear that the next encounter would be terrible, that she'd be Tased or worse. In her case it's a small town. The emergency medical workers knew the family. Sabrina would leave school and walk along a busy road. There was real danger of being hit by cars. |
What does society not understand about this problem? |
Many autistic children don't go through these problems. But there are others in worse situations than the Benedicts. We really need more words in our language — for crisis, for family responsibility. I wouldn't have understood the behaviors and the burden on the family if I hadn't seen it. |
Did you get to know Sabrina? |
Sabrina recognized me and knew what I was doing; at one point she wanted to interview me. But I mostly just observed. I didn't want my presence to be an irritant to her. Getting through the day is difficult enough. She's only 13. And the story is really about the parents and their journey. |
I was leaving my Midtown office after work on a Monday evening. I had returned from a trip that morning and gone straight to the office, so I still had my bags with me. |
I walked to the corner to hail a cab. Luckily, one was approaching just as I got there. |
Reaching to open the door while juggling my belongings, I noticed a large pizza box on the back seat. |
"There's a box of pizza back here," I said to the driver. |
"Oh, give that to me," he said. "The lady who just got out must've left it." |
I threw my things in the back and handed him the box through the window. |
As I got into the back of the cab, he opened the box and tilted it toward the plastic partition so I could get a look. |
"This is a full pie from Serafina!" he exclaimed. "Want to split it?" |
"OK, your choice," he said. "But do you mind if I play some soft jazz?" |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — A.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero, Jeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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