Hungry families admit they ‘stretch the formula’

Some families can not afford enough formula for babies turn to “stretch the formula,” a risky method that infant formula is diluted or not fed babies sometimes , say researchers.

This can have significant health consequences for the baby’s developing brain, increasing the risk of learning disabilities, behavioral and psychological, according to two recent studies by the Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati.

In one study, researchers studied two families treated at Cincinnati pediatric clinics serving about 45,000 patients each year in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Despite receiving public assistance, about 30 percent of these families could not afford the basic nutritional needs.

“We were surprised to find that one in three families had concerns about the food,” he said in a news release from the hospital co-author, Dr. Andrew Beck, general pediatrician.

The inability to afford enough food to meet basic nutritional requirements are known as food insecurity. “Food insecurity tends to be an invisible problem that forces families to make difficult choices between food and other basic necessities,” lamented Beck.

The researchers noted that better screening methods to identify families who do not have enough to eat.

The study appears in a recent online issue of the journal Clinical Pediatrics.

In 2009, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) federal, which provides basic nutrition for low-income women with children, reduced the amount of formula that provides babies over six months. The researchers found that two thirds of families in clinics supported by the WIC Cincinnati said they often do not receive a supply of formula for a full month.

Of the families who can not meet basic nutritional needs, 27 percent admitted to dilute the formula with water or reduce the number of times that provide food, the study found.

“We see the effects of these changes in our urban clinics, which highlights that the WIC is truly a supplementary program,” said the press release on the study’s lead author, Dr. Mary Carol Burkhardt. “I would say that cities with demographics similar poverty levels and experience some of the same behaviors found in our study.”

Another study by these researchers, published in the January 16 issue of the journal Pediatrics, found that routine evaluations of pediatric residents do not identify families who can not meet their nutritional needs.

Residents acknowledged the problem in just two percent of cases, while a preliminary investigation showed that almost one third of the families attending urban clinics did not have enough to eat.

“Sometimes families are reluctant to report food insecurity because of the stigma,” he said in the press release from the hospital co-author, Dr. Robert Kahn. “We made several improvements, which included training our pediatric residents to ask questions about issues related to hunger in a more sensible”.

The ability of physicians to identify hungry families increased by eleven percent after the training program, Kahn’s team noted.