Is being born with flaws the original sin?

Globally, every three minutes, a child with cleft lip and palate is born;

In China, about 1 in every 700 newborns has a cleft lip and palate.

Cleft lip and palate does not only mean that the face is damaged, but difficulty eating, language barriers and congenital heart disease that often occur with it have left countless babies with cleft lip and palate facing various crises from birth.

Forced by life, some children miss the golden period of surgery, they grow up in ridicule and isolation,

Even if we live around us, we are rarely really seen.

This early summer, we want to walk into the story of patients with cleft lip and palate —

See their plight, their needs, their lives.

Use the power of a smile to break down prejudices.

"For the first time in my life, I cried for my daughter!"

Lin Lin's hometown is in Zhenxiong, Yunnan, and she is 11 years old this year, but she has just entered the first grade of primary school, and all this starts with a "crack" in her lips.

Lin Lin's mother was told by the hospital during the 8th month of pregnancy that the fetus in the stomach suffered from cleft lip and palate, which struck the couple hard.

They have a hard time understanding why the first few months of examination were fine, and now they have become "rabbit lips".

For a time, the two were caught in a dilemma. Lin Lin's father looked at his wife who was pregnant in August, and he really couldn't bear this unborn little life in his belly.

He gritted his teeth and decided to give birth to the child, thinking, "It doesn't matter, it's good to be born and make up for it." ”

Forest before surgical repair

But Heaven made a huge "joke" with them. On the third day of Lin Lin's birth, the hospital once again confirmed that the child had congenital heart disease. At that moment, Lin Lin's father felt that the sky had collapsed,

"The first time I cried in my life, I cried for my daughter."

In order to treat their daughter's illness, Lin Lin's parents had to run between Dashan's home and the city's hospital. Fortunately, the heart surgery was very successful, and Lin Lin was finally able to bounce around like a normal child.

Whenever he saw his daughter's lively appearance, Lin Lin's father would always have a sour feeling in his heart.

"We all know in our hearts that the suffering of children is simply nine deaths and nine lives!"

Lin Lin and Mom and Dad who are preparing to undergo cleft lip and palate repair treatment

Heart problems were solved, and the scars on Kolin's lips, vague pronunciation and difficult eating situation remained a wall in the hearts of his parents.

For children with cleft lip and palate, difficulty eating is the first problem to appear.

Like Lin Lin, Shun Shun is also a child with cleft lip and palate, when he was born, he could not suck normally like other children, and his mother could only feed with a spoon.

"When I was fed, I would vomit, and then when I went to the hospital, the doctor said that it was dangerous for us to feed ourselves, which was easy to cause aspiration pneumonia, and we could only insert a gastric tube, but the child would still vomit," Shunshun's mother recalled.

Shun Shun and Mom

If eating choking is dangerous for Shunshun, it is undoubtedly "fatal" for Lin Lin, who suffers from congenital heart disease.

Choking on food can cause complications of heart disease, in other words, the most common meal can be life-threatening.

At the same time, as he grew older, Lin Lin began to learn to speak, but the defects in the pronunciation structure caused by the cleft lip and palate made it difficult for others to hear Lin Lin's speech, and he could only rely on his mother to translate on the side.

When walking down the street, the obvious scars on his lips always make Lin Lin the focus of strangers' eyes, or the object of ridicule by other children.

Lin Lin's parents could not bear to let their daughter live like this for a lifetime, but the heart surgery and high medical costs that had just ended made this family, which was not rich, even worse.

When they were embarrassed, "Operation Smile" appeared in their field of vision.

"Because I ate rabbit meat, did the child have cleft lips and palate?"

To date, more than 30,000 patients with cleft lip and palate have received free medical assistance from Operation Smile in China, and hundreds of medical volunteers have traveled to more than 100 cities in China. (The Operation Smile Fund focuses on assisting children with cleft lip and palate and other facial deformities.) ）

Director Wang Jian of the Ninth People's Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine is one of these medical volunteers.

"I started to participate in Operation Smile in 2007, and when I first started in this area of Guizhou, Yunnan, I was very shocked. I have never seen people with so many difficulties living in such a difficult place. ”

"There are a lot of elderly patients, but there are also some children of ethnic minorities who live in the mountains far away, and some parents have to walk for three days with their children on their backs to go to the county seat to participate in the operation."

2021 Operation Smile free clinic in Anshun, Guizhou

At the operation registration site, many parents held their children, and in addition to expectations, there were also some worries and confusion in their eyes:

Expecting the child to be able to undergo the operation smoothly, worrying about whether the baby can endure the pain of the operation, and confused that they really want to know "what exactly did I do during pregnancy to cause the child to suffer from cleft lip and palate".

"Once I came into contact with a pregnant woman who thought that she had eaten rabbit meat to make her child have cleft lips and palate, and she was very remorseful, but this was actually a misunderstanding."

"We must use our expertise to spread this information to alleviate their anxieties and eliminate prejudices." Volunteer Gao Juan said.

Cleft lip and palate repair is more than just a single operation

Since the "rabbit lip" is a cracked lip, can't it be repaired by surgical sutures?

This kind of assumption is actually the biggest misunderstanding of people's cleft lip and palate.

"Before joining Operation Smile, I didn't even know that cleft lip and cleft palate were two situations." Operation Smile volunteer Gao Juan said frankly.

In general, cleft lip and palate have both lip and palate, and many patients suffer from cleft lip and palate with cleft palate.

On the mainland, on average, 1 in 700 newborns may have a cleft lip and palate. The causative factors mainly come from familial genetics and drug stimulation during pregnancy, bacterial and viral infections, and nutritional deficiencies.

Fortunately, at present, a complete set of cleft lip and palate treatment procedures have been formed in China, and different stages of the disease will be rescued by professional medical care of different departments to ensure the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with cleft lip and palate throughout the process.

Ying Ying recovered well after surgery

Tingting after surgery and childhood comparison

"Including surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, otolaryngologists, pediatricians, psychologists, rehabilitation doctors, voice trainers and other multidisciplinary professionals to cooperate and support." Director Wang introduced.

2021 Sichuan Liangshan Meigu Doctor is comforting the child in the resuscitation room

When a child with a cleft lip and palate is diagnosed in the early stage, the doctor will carry out preoperative education for parents, popularize the condition and feeding methods of children with cleft lip and palate, and carry out psychological expectation construction.

If your child has a more severe cleft palate, a preoperative examination of the stomatology department will be performed around a week of birth.

Children with cleft lip and palate Xiaoya and her mother

In the surgical repair stage, different degrees of cleft lip and palate need to be treated in different cycles and times, which makes many children's families have to go through a long treatment process.

Cleft lip and palate repair surgery is underway

The difficulty of this process is very imaginable, Xiaomi, who was once a child with a cleft lip and palate, said,

"A lot of people think that cleft lip and palate only need one surgery to get better, but in fact it takes at least three or four times to recover. For example, I was healed after four surgical repairs, and I had to endure the severe pain of wound recovery in the middle. ”

Fortunately, during the treatment process, professional voice trainers and psychologists will intervene in the child's family to help the child rebuild language function and relieve the psychological pressure of the family. Recalling the mental journey of rehabilitation, Xiaomi said:

"I used to be on the verge of collapse, locking myself in my room and not going out, always feeling that no one wanted to accept me, like me, and had lost hope in the world." 」

"Fortunately, I got a lot of love from a lot of people, and I was able to get out in the end."

Old photo before The Xiaomi (left) repair

With the help of Operation Smile volunteers, Xiaomi insisted on training harmonica and blowing balloons every day after recovering from surgery.

In the past six months, Xiaomi's speech and communication have improved to a large extent, friends around her can hear her clearly, and the ridicule and prejudice of strangers have gradually disappeared.

"I feel like I've become more confident."

Suffering is not punishment, only to pursue the light

All suffering and defects are not divine punishments, and all children should smile with dignity.

Lin Lin now attends a primary school in her hometown of Tai Wan, and due to cleft lip and palate, her growth trajectory is much slower than that of other children.

However, with the help of Operation Smile, she can already go to school normally and integrate into school life.

Looking at the increasing brightness of this concern placed on the tip of his heart, Lin Lin's father was finally able to open a long-lost smile.

"I am very fortunate to have a chance for my child to grow up healthily, and I now hope that she can study well, work harder and more aggressively than other children, and change her life!"

Lin Lin after receiving cleft lip and palate repair treatment

Volunteer Gao Juan was also very moved when she recalled these experiences. In one volunteer activity after another, she has witnessed countless strong families and lovely patients.

Xiaomei, who underwent restorative surgery, also wanted to become a doctor when she grew up

"All the hard work is not worth mentioning in the face of the children's smiling faces, this is not a one-way payment, but a two-way love and kindness."

"The happiness of seeing them, like other children, have a future to look forward to is indescribable."

Children with Operation Smile volunteers

Xiaomi, who once fell into depression due to cleft lip and palate, is now also open and loves the world.

Today, she is already a volunteer of Operation Smile, and hopes that through her own efforts, she can continue to pass on this love and let more people regain their confident smiles.

"I hope the world will give us more tolerance and some love to prove that we can work hard and change ourselves."

"If you are still struggling with illness, don't be discouraged, don't fall, and try slowly, what we insist on will one day embrace ourselves in turn." 」

Xiaomi after undergoing cleft lip and palate repair surgery

(Lin Lin, Shunshun, Yingying, Tingting, Xiaoya, Xiaomi, and Xiaomei are pseudonyms)

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