The US is running out of baby formula: yet more evidence that new mothers can never win

‘Back it all came, in a nightmarish rush; the series of breastfeeding consultants; all the mad things I ate to increase my supply; having too little milk, then too much.’ Photograph: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

I had an easy pregnancy, a textbook C-section and the gift of a two-week recovery period alone at home after my twins were sent to the newborn intensive care unit – or, having given birth in the US, “the world’s most expensive babysitting service”, as a nurse described it at the time.

One consequence of this was that I was fully healed by the time they came home. Another was that in the first two weeks of my babies’ lives, breastfeeding had to be supplemented with formula. By the time they left hospital, my supply was getting sketchy, which as it turned out was the least of our problems. Trying to get two preemies, not much bigger than guinea pigs, to latch was like asking them to eat peas off a beachball.