Feeding Babies and Young Children Safely in a Disaster

Natural disasters — hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes — can make it hard to feed infants and young children safely. Here's how to keep them fed.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding remains the best option for most infants, even in a disaster. Breast milk protects babies from diarrhea and respiratory infections and provides the calories and nutrients they need — protection that matters most when contaminated water and unsanitary conditions raise the risk of disease.

• Plan ahead: make a breastfeeding emergency plan before disaster strikes.
• Clean hands: wash before feeding; without soap and safe water, use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
• Learn hand expression — in a power outage, an electric pump may not work.
• Keep going and stay together: staying with your child during and after a disaster makes it much easier to keep breastfeeding.

Formula feeding

• Clean hands before preparing formula and feeding (sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if needed).
• Ready-to-use liquid formula is best if available — it needs no water.
• Otherwise, mix powdered or concentrated formula with bottled water when tap water is unsafe. No bottled water? Boil water for 1 minute and let it cool. Use treated water only if bottled or boiled water isn't available, and follow local boil-water advisories. See how to prepare and store powdered formula in an emergency.
• Higher-risk babies — younger than 2 months, premature or with weakened immunity — may need extra precautions against Cronobacter infection.

Breastfeeding and formula together

• If you already do both, breastfeed more often in an emergency to build your milk supply and rely less on formula.
• Clean feeding items with soap and bottled, boiled or treated water before each use. If you can't, children can lap milk from a disposable cup.
• Throw out bottle nipples and pacifiers that have touched floodwater.

Resources

• Food help: food assistance and food system resources.
• For families: an emergency checklist for families with infants and young children, preparedness for expectant and new parents, keeping children safe in disasters, and breast milk storage and preparation.
• For relief workers and health care providers: CDC's Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies toolkit, helping responders, families and the public make sure children are fed safely when disaster strikes, and HHS's infant feeding during disasters.

Sources

Based on "Feeding Your Child Safely During a Disaster," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. A stock photograph is left out.