LISA DESJARDINS: From formula to medicine, parents of infants and school age kids are being battered by a wave of shortages.

Ali Rogin is back with more on what's missing on store shelves and how it's impacting families.

ALI ROGIN: To name a few, the baby formula shortage is now in its second year.

Supplies of children's Tylenol and Motrin are still recovering from a brutal flu season, and the antibiotic Amoxicillin is also in short supply.

And Adderall, the medication primarily used to treat ADHD, is increasingly hard to find.

Parents and caregivers are going from store to store, calling pharmacy after pharmacy to find these things that their children urgently need.

For more on what is causing these shortages, we turn to Chabeli Carrazana, she's the economy reporter for The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gender, politics and policy.

Chabeli, thank you so much for joining us.

Let's start with the baby formula shortage.

It started about a year ago after a major recall and a factory closure.

So where do things stand now?

CHABELI CARRAZANA, Economy Reporter, The 19th: At this point, we are seeing supply of formulas start to come back to shelves.

But if you're a parent in most parts of the country and you're finding that those shelves are still pretty bare, and what we're seeing is sort of this mix match of pockets of the country where that shortage is more acute and other areas where it has come back significantly.

Just this week, we saw some more formula recalled from Enfamil, which the FDA is saying, will hopefully not worsen the situation significantly, but it's definitely still a huge problem.

ALI ROGIN: There's also the issue of children's Tylenol and Motrin.

There have been shortages of those medicines since at least December of last year.

What's the latest with that and why is it happening?

CHABELI CARRAZANA: So, with those, we hear that it's really demand driven, right?

We have heard from Johnson & Johnson, who's the main manufacturer of these medications, that this cold flu COVID-19 RSV season from the fall really ramped up the demand for these medications.

We had people who were buying them proactively, and so now we are seeing parents buying alternatives, generics, different forms.

I think that situation is getting a little better, but it's still definitely with us as well.

ALI ROGIN: And the antibiotic amoxicillin is also in short supply.

That, of course, treats bacterial infections, not viruses.

What's behind that?

CHABELI CARRAZANA: What's happened with the amoxicillin is, again, we're seeing a demand driven shortage.

And again, we are seeing that pediatricians are switching to different antibiotics to help kids, but what that's causing is a cascade effect.

And so that is really just layering and layering on top of all of these other shortages that are happening at the same time.

They're all affecting really sort of the same group of people, right?

Kids and caregivers.

ALI ROGIN: Yeah, absolutely.

And I want to get to the effect on caregivers in just a second.

But the last individual shortage that we want to talk about today is Adderall.

Are there any similar factors that go into that shortage?

CHABELI CARRAZANA: There are.

There's a lot of through lines here, right, with all of these.

With Adderall, it's really interesting because we saw throughout the pandemic some relaxed rules around prescribing a controlled substance like Adderall.

So if you were seeing a doctor through telehealth, you could get Adderall through a prescription on telehealth, which previously you were unable to do.

We also had people at home who were more aware of each other, parents who were realizing, wow, maybe my child has ADHD.

Let me get this checked out.

And, of course, supply chain issues, which I should also say is part of this, also happened with Adderall.

And so we again have a situation where there's many more prescriptions of Adderall, and there's only a set number of medications that are available each year because it's a controlled substance.

ALI ROGIN: And Chabeli.

Lastly, you've been talking to parents about how they've been dealing with these things.

What are they telling you and what are some of the things they're doing to deal with it in their own homes?

CHABELI CARRAZANA: I think the tenor of the conversations with parents is really one of desperation, right?

You know, when we talk about formula specifically, that is an item that has no alternative.

This is the only food that some children have access to.

And so, really, it's been a lot of desperation.

We've seen a lot of parents helping each other across the country.

There's Facebook groups that have popped up formula and for other things as well, where they're essentially sending each other these items across the country when they find them into total strangers.

So these parents are just kind of cobbling it together, driving to store after store, after store, after store, sending family members to drive to stores and trying to find it.

And I should say that there are families that are able to do that, and there are also low income families for whom that option is not available.

So, it really is an untenable situation and one that just doesn't necessarily seem to be ending anytime soon.

ALI ROGIN: Chabeli Carrazana with The 19th, thank you so much for your time.

CHABELI CARRAZANA: Thank you.