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Interplast doctors give medical check to children with cleft lip and palate. Photo L.A |
Voluntary doctors from Interplast, a US humanitarian plastic surgery organisation, and Binh Dinh General Hospital have provided free surgery for 60 local children with cleft lip and cleft palate.
Over 200 children waiting for smile
Children will be very loveable with smile. Unfortunately, many were born with cleft lip or cleft palate.
What’s more, most children with cleft lip and cleft palate find it difficult to eat or suck. Their mothers have to sit to give suck to their children or use special tools to help them eat.
In case lip cleft or palate cleft occurs as two sided (bilateral) or complete respectively, it will make children easily catch pneumonia.
The early reconstructive surgery, therefore, will help them avoid possible complications and inferiority complex.
The statistics released by the province’s Department of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs showed there are 6,223 disabled children of all types in Binh Dinh, including 200 with cleft lip and cleft palate.
There are many reasons causing congenital malformations, but the most common causes are that mothers-to-be suffer a disease in the first three month of pregnancy or parents are infected with social diseases or toxic chemicals, according to the study by the health sector.
The study also proved there is often one child with cleft lip and palate among 2,000 children.
Effort to bring smile to children
The province’s Children Sponsoring Fund has called on the contributions of charitable organisations and individuals to offer free surgery to unhappy children for many years.
14 free surgeries have been carried out so far, bringing smile to 1,464 children with cleft lip and palate.
This is the third time Interplast doctors have provided free surgery for disabled children in the central province of Binh Dinh.
They offered the medical check to 116 children on Apr.6, selecting 60 for the operation which has been carried out from Apr. 7 to 17.
These children will be very happy after the plastic surgery. From now they can have a normal life.
Binh Dinh, however, still has hundreds of children with cleft lip and palate. Most of them were born in poor families in disadvantaged areas; thus, they couldn’t afford plastic surgery.
It’s necessary for local doctor to be passed on professional expertise to bring smile to all disabled children in the province.
Also, mothers-to-be need to know how to take care of embryos and avoid social diseases and toxic chemicals.
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