Today we performed 12 operations on babies and small children. This was the first operation for most if not all of these children. It was a difficult time for many of these mothers to hand over their children to strangers for the operation, so much reassurance was given to these parents. The parents were assured that their children were in good hands with many experienced people here to help them. Most operations were between 1 and 1 ½ hours and were told by the mothers that these were the longest hours of their lives.

It is amazing to see how the lives of these patients can be changed with just a one hour operation. The patient will have less problems with eating, have a better chance at normal speech, and their self esteem improves with looking more like their peers. Today we operated on identical twins that both had slightly different cleft lip problems. The surgery on both twins was done by the same surgeon so the outcomes on the children would be similar.

6a00e5540c3e8c883401bb0834cf98970d-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5eb9970c-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b7c790cd1c970b-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b7c790cc5f970b-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b7c790cc72970b-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5dcc970c-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401bb0834cedd970d-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401bb0834ce8e970d-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5d80970c-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5eac970c-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b7c790ccb0970b-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5e61970c-pi

6a00e5540c3e8c883401b8d11a5e3a970c-pi