Cleft Care International was formed to support the important work of organizations around the world that provide comprehensive cleft care to children in need.
We deploy our resources for worthy efforts in the following areas of cleft care:
In many rural areas of low-income countries, it can be hard to locate patients that need help because of shame and stigma that surrounds the condition. It's important to educate parents and family members with the foundational knowledge about cleft lip and palate. Once located, regular care and monitoring pre- and post-surgery is essential to success. Cleft Care International supports programs to promote comprehensive cleft care, to evaluate identified patients, provide pediatric care, and monitor their health and well-being before and after surgery.
Pediatric Care & Monitoring
Many children around the world born with cleft lip and palate suffer from malnutrition. Babies born with cleft lip and palate are often unable to breastfeed, and parents in poor areas are often unable to pay for bottle feeding. Because these children are very underweight, they are not candidates to receive corrective surgery. Cleft Care International supports programs to provide milk, vitamins, medicine, special adapted bottles, and breast pumps to parents of children born with cleft.
Nutrition
Many low-income countries face a shortage of surgeons who perform cleft repair. Even where surgeons are available, surgery is out of reach for many families without means to pay. Teams of volunteer surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses regularly travel to low-income countries to provide services for free, but there are still costs for the surgery, including facility fees, the cost of supplies and medication, and other costs such as transporting and housing the family from their homes to the location of the surgery. Cleft Care International supports programs that organize, coordinate, and execute surgical cleft missions.
Surgery
Repairing a cleft lip and the palate is essential for speech, but it doesn’t completely solve the problem. Children born with open palates need speech therapy after surgery. Because of the structural differences of the face and mouth, children develop insecurity and avoidance behaviors in speaking situations. This leads to isolation and fear which impact social participation. Cleft Care International supports programs providing speech therapy services to children and adults born with cleft.
Speech Therapy
Many children born with cleft lip and palate face challenges in dental development. Both in the primary and permanent sets of teeth, there may be too many teeth, too few teeth, misshapen and crooked teeth, and even teeth that erupt high in the crevice of the palate. Cleft Care International supports programs that provide pediatric dental and orthodontic care and education to children born with cleft lip and palate.
Dental & Orthodontic Care
Cleft Care International does not carry out cleft care directly. Instead, we process grants, distribute funds, and provide oversight consistent with our purpose.
Our board members regularly volunteer on medical missions around the world to perform cleft lip and palate repair surgeries. We see the important work done by organizations on the ground that evaluate, feed, support, and provide care to the children that we see for only one day, surgery day. These organizations do heroic work, always on a very limited budget, depending on donations to serve these children.
Cleft Care International shares the goal with our intended partner organizations to support children born with cleft lip and palate through surgery, nutrition, speech therapy, dental and orthodontic care, and more.
