Inside the baby banks rationing formula milk to one tin per family each week
Every week though they run out of formula - there's not enough donated and more and more families desperately seeking it. It's unsustainable but they just keep going because they have to. Babies have to be fed.
Thursday 5 October 2023 03:35, UK
Fifteen minutes before they open the doors the team of volunteers huddle in for a quick meeting.
There are well over a hundred parents and children waiting outside, buggy after buggy lined up patiently.
Inside they issue last-minute instructions to the team at the baby bank and then use the moment to pray - it's 30 seconds of reflection and hard reality.
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Carys, who is leading the prayer, appeals to God for the items they are short of - baby formula is again on the list.
They are now rationing first formula milk to just one tin per family per week because there simply isn't enough to go around.
Carys knows they will run out before the end of the morning session - she knows those hard conversations with parents are coming.
"What will I say to the next family that comes along desperately in need of formula?" she asks. "What will happen to them then?"
The prices in the shops for first formula milk mean some families forage online for cheaper tins that are sometimes already open. Earlier this year, Sky News spoke to a family that regularly steals it.
Baby banks report all manner of dangerous methods some families have resorted to - watering down, using condensed milk instead or switching babies onto cow's milk far earlier than the recommended 12-month mark.
Read more:
What can you do if you're struggling to buy baby formula?
Soaring cost of baby formula leading to unsafe feeding practices
Every week they run out of formula
Inside Growbaby, Swindon, hosted by the Pattern Church, it is no different.
Their cheerful team of dedicated volunteers do their best to create a warm, welcoming, non-judgemental sanctuary for families - parents can have a "shopping" timeslot where they pick up a basket and take what they need.
Every week though they run out of formula - there's not enough donated and more and more families desperately seeking it. It's unsustainable but they just keep going because they have to. Babies have to be fed.
Prayers answered but families are in need all over UK
One of the mums, Ellie, was at the church with her four-month-old son.
She told us: "This place is now ram packed. The first session there's always queues and queues at the door because everybody's trying to get the formula that they need to feed their children."
It was early afternoon when we saw a small box of a few tins of formula milk delivered as a donation to the church.
The morning prayer may have been answered but for families in need all over the UK this is a haphazard lottery.
The people who don't win a tub from a baby bank have to take their chances elsewhere.