RALEIGH, N.C. — Moms are exhausting all avenues to track down formula for their babies in North Carolina.
At last check, state inventory is close to 50% out of stock, based on statistics from Datasembly.
When a plant shut down in Sturgis, Michigan because of a bacterial infection in baby formula, the ensuing product recall sent shock waves nationwide.
The president initiated the Defense Production Act Wednesday to ramp up supply and launched Operation Fly Formula to bring needed formula from overseas.
Moms in the Triangle are not waiting to see what happens next. Many are contacting one another directly on Facebook to see where and how they can get more supply.
Rachel Mangum adopted her son, Mac Mangum, on Aug. 29. Since that day, she said she has grown used to going the extra mile for him.
“I haven’t been able to find any formula of my own since mid March,” Mangum said.
As an adoptive mother who doesn’t produce breast milk, she said not knowing where you will or won’t find formula next is horrifying.
“It's pretty scary because you can’t just switch formulas on a kid,” she said.
Because of that she knows what it is like to hunt for formula.
“That is kind of what started all this, because I was trying to get my own formula, and every formula that I was trying to get for my kid was a recalled product,” she said.
The new mom left her job in April to spend more quality time with her son. The added time on her hands gave her the freedom to scour the internet to find formula. She turned to Facebook groups, where she found a community of mostly women she didn’t know.
The social media platform is where she began communicating with other mothers and locating formula for them. She started making a weekly list of people, places and products they need — and doing deliveries.
“I have pickups from Brittney,” Mangum said as she scrolled down her phone.
Mangum has started to call herself the “Formula Fairy.”
On Wednesday, she made at least eight stops to drop off formula.
“If I can spend four hours a day and feed seven children for a week, it’s worth it,” she said.
On one of her deliveries, the 39-year-old loaded up several bags of formula. As soon as she made it to another mom’s home, Mangum walked up to the front porch. Coincidentally, the beneficiary was a woman named Rebecca Mangum, who smiled ear-to-ear when she received the delivery.
“Thank you so much,” Rebecca Mangum said as she hugged Rachel Mangum.
The gas to make these deliveries is coming out of Rachel Mangum's own pocket.
From last week to this week, she said she will have spent about $200.
She also said that because she often buys these products for the moms, she asks for reimbursement at or by the time of drop-off.