When a baby is born, the words healthy and normal carry strong emotional weight with expectant parents. And thanks to continuing advances in U.S. medical technology, they are words often taken for granted. Poverty and limited access to medical care yields staggering deformity rates.
Children born with birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, suffer an almost inconceivable fate.
Many are abandoned or ostracized. In developing countries with limited medical resources, deformity equals non-acceptance. And whether those deformities have their origin in birth, disease or accidents, their impact on the young lives affected by them is the same. In these areas, expanding populations and escalating debt are diluting the effectiveness of limited foreign medical-assistance programs. Dedicated to Making a Difference Thanks to the generous efforts of plastic surgeons from the United States, these people have not been forgotten.