About Cleft Lip/Cleft Palate surgeries
Born with scarred and misshapen lips, a crooked nose, lopsided teeth and unable to feed on anything without a problem, hundreds of thousands of children are born with disfiguring cleft lips and palates. In India, it is worse for baby girls as in many communities various methods are used by families to kill infant girls. Their fate is sealed if they are born with this disfigurement. Growing up as a child with this deformity is a life of being teased and taunted mercilessly. Most parents are too poor to afford corrective surgery. Without surgery infants sometimes starve to death because the milk flows into the nose and palate, causing infection and they are unable to nurse. School-age boys and girls don’t attend school because of their humiliation. Many see the disfigurement as a curse. Even thinking about marriage is often out of the question.
Some babies don’t have to live that kind of fate thanks to OBI’s cleft lip/cleft palate surgeries. Just one trip by OBI changes the lives of the affected children as the OB team makes arrangements for the child to undergo corrective surgery for the cleft lip/cleft palate. A successful surgery later, the beaming parents feel on top of the world as they hold their charming baby in their arms. OB brightens the faces of many babies born with a cleft-lip with a beautiful smile.
Until 31st DEC 2009 OBI performed 73 cleft lip/cleft palate surgeries in India.
