15 May 2007
U.S.-Based Operation Smile Brings Hope to Children Around World
Nonprofit group repairs child and young adult cleft palates, cleft lips
Each day around the world thousands of children are born with facial deformities that, left uncorrected, could affect their chances of having a productive and happy life.
This is the situation thousands of medical and nonmedical volunteers of Virginia-based Operation Smile are committed to improving.
Since 1982 the nonprofit organization has been repairing child and young adult cleft palates and cleft lips in countries around the globe. The group, as it says, is "changing lives one smile at a time."
Supported primarily by private donations, teams consisting of 35-50 volunteers each travel to countries for approximately two weeks at a time. Mission members include physicians, nurses, dentists, speech pathologists and medical support staff, as well as nonmedical workers.
Prior to each visit, which lasts approximately two weeks, mission members spend months to prepare, including arranging for clean and safe operating and recovery rooms at sites and sending medical supplies in advance.
Notified by local volunteers that medical help is coming to a community, hundreds of children and their family members are usually at the clinic site to greet mission members, said longtime volunteer Cindy McCain of Arizona.
Many children needing surgery for a cleft palate or lip have carried a stigma of being unattractive and may have had difficulty eating, talking or breathing their entire lives, McCain said.
As a nonmedical volunteer, McCain provides administrative assistance for pre- and postoperative medical evaluations, and comfort to the children and their family members before and after surgery.
McCain said her most memorable experience as a volunteer, which occurred several years ago, began when she visited an orphanage in Bangladesh while working with another medical nonprofit group.
As she was about to leave the orphanage, its director, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mother Teresa, asked if McCain would take a baby living in the children's home to the United States for medical attention for a severe cleft palate.
On the trip back to Arizona, McCain decided she wanted the child to be part of her life and that of her husband, John, and that she wanted to adopt it. And she began to think of other children in the world with a deformity similar to that of the baby she was holding. Back in the United States she had her child's cleft palate repaired and sought out Operation Smile to volunteer, having heard of the organization's work.
Operation Smile estimates that one out of approximately 500-600 babies in the developing world is born with a cleft lip or cleft palate. Both are congenital defects that scientists believe are caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, according to Operation Smile.
Surgery to repair a cleft palate and cleft lip is a "simple procedure" and in the United States usually is performed when a baby is days old, McCain said. But in poor countries the cleft conditions typically are left untouched until a volunteer organization steps in to help.
Donating time to Operation Smile benefits volunteers as well as the young patients, say McCain and fellow longtime volunteer Cindi Raglin, a nurse from Virginia.
As soon as a child wakes from surgery, he or she is given a mirror, Raglin said.
"At first they just stare" at the reflection of their new appearance, she said. "Then they smile."
"It doesn’t take a language to say, 'Thank you.' You can see it in their smiles," she said.
