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A recent report shows that one in eight low-income parents are watering down their infant's formula or "formula stretching." Many of these parents are on government food assistance programs. The study, published in Clinical Pediatrics, also found that almost 30% of parents who utilized inner city children's clinics didn't have enough food to make it through the month.

"We knew this was a high-risk population," said study co-author Andrew Beck, a fellow in general academic pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "But these numbers are still staggering."

Studies of hunger and food shortages across the nation have found that 16 to 22 percent of American families come up short some months.

The study surveyed 144 parents of infants who attended the hospital's Pediatric Primary Care Center. Most of these families use Medicaid, receive food stamps and WIC. They asked about food availability in the home and infant feeding. Some 65 percent of families ran out of WIC-supplied infant formula most months. The parents said this forced them to dilute the formula and cut down on formula for the babies.

"There will be a subset of children who will have what is called ‘failure to thrive,'" Beck explained. "More often, though, the ramifications of this tend to be less visible -- problems with cognition and behavior. In some it may lead to obesity later in life."

The group hopes to find ways to help these families and the others who weren't part of the study. It is indicitive of what is happening around our nation. They say they can find solutions, but can only help the families who admit there is a problem.