When it comes to the connection between economic security and infants, we already have plenty of data supporting the importance of investing in pregnancy and early childhood. An analysis of the government’s pandemic response, which was primarily in the form of unrestricted money including stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment benefits, shows that these interventions led to a record drop in poverty - and in record time. Moms are spending the money on strollers, formula, groceries and other essentials for a baby’s needs and comfort.Īnother 500 expecting mothers have been added to the Bridge Project and are now receiving their first payments, but no amount of private goodwill will ever combat soaring wealth inequality and a child poverty rate that - until the cash infusions of the COVID-19 pandemic - had barely budged in decades.Īny guaranteed-income program large enough to meet the vast need in this country will require government investment and shift away from complicated, punitive policies and toward ones that are effective and offer dignity, self-determination and agency. Early results show the program is working: moms receiving the money were able to save far more than those who didn’t, and were also able to better afford child care. The Bridge Project is focused on the predominantly BIPOC Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Inwood, and Central Harlem, and our first cohort of 100 is a mix of Latina and Black mothers.
This is one of the many reasons we launched The Bridge Project, a guaranteed-income program giving low-income mothers who are pregnant or have infants up to $1,000 a month for three years in an effort to eliminate child poverty.īased on decades of research showing the significance of early childhood investments, including the work on unconditional cash transfers done by the Baby’s First Years team, The Bridge Project is the first guaranteed-income program in the nation to begin distributing payments to new moms and their babies, and has since been joined by other initiatives including the Abundant Birth Project and a new partnership between Perigee Fund and Hummingbird Doula + Family Services.
system is not geared to support the crucial developmental phase of a baby’s first years. Whether it’s a lack of formula, food or housing, the U.S.
Other stores purposefully only carry smaller formula sizes, forcing low-income mothers to waste their vouchers on items that are a fraction of their full value.
This leaves families to scour the city to find food they can afford for their child.
The FDA told ABC it would provide an update as it learned more.Even without the shortage, tremendous barriers exist for already struggling parents to source infant formula: some bodegas in New York City only carry a certain brand that WIC, the government program to subsidize food for women, infants and children, restricts. For the other seven deaths, the FDA said it could not find enough evidence linking those circumstances directly with Abbott's plant and weren't included in the initial investigation.ĪBC News reported the latest investigation is in its "preliminary stages" and it has not yet been determined how substantively this death is connected to Abbott's formula. Two of the deaths were included in the FDA's investigation of Abbott's Sturgis plant. According to the FDA, they were first notified of the tenth death on June 10 and have since initiated an investigation.ĪBC News previously reported the FDA investigated nine claims of infant deaths, including seven that had not previously been made public. The new claim said an infant died after consuming Abbott's product in January 2022, making it the tenth death before Abbott issued its recall in February. WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration is investigating a new claim of an infant dying after consuming Abbott formula.