Diana is a darling girl who has certainly been through a lot in her little life. She was brought to the attention of Love Without Boundaries in March this year when she was brought to our Anhui Cleft Healing Home. Diana was so tiny, weighing a mere 2kg! In addition to having a cleft lip and palate, she was thought to have been born prematurely.
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Cody arrived at our Anhui Cleft Healing Home (ACHH) at just six weeks of age. He was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate and came to ACHH to receive individual care so that he would be ready for cleft lip surgery in a few months. However, when he arrived he was pale, not very responsive, and appeared very weak with fever and diarrhea. Quite concerned for little Cody, our staff brought him to have a medical evaluation the very next day. At that examination, the doctor felt that Cody may actually have been born prematurely and showed signs of serious malnutrition. Cody was admitted directly to the newborn baby floor for medication to treat the diarrhea and fevers and for nutrition support. However, that was just the beginning.
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Available Soon: A beautiful, airy 8-9 bedroom, 6 bath villa in lovely Fujian Province with a spacious garden. Perfect for a host of babies and their loving nannies!
One of the main purposes of our recent trip to China was to finalize the details for our fourth healing home – this one located in the Fujian Province. This new home will be a combination of our cleft healing home and our Heartbridge healing unit models – with one floor dedicated entirely to vulnerable babies with cleft and one floor dedicated to children with other medical needs, such as preemies, those born with heart disease, etc. The need for these homes continues to increase, as almost every orphanage we spoke with on this trip told us that 98% of the children now being abandoned have medical needs. As we stood in the orphanage infant/baby rooms on this trip, we clearly saw this reality. Every crib is filled with babies with medical issues, ranging from heart defects to spina bifada to cleft lip and palate. In the past it was already a daunting task for an aunty to care for 10 to 15 “healthy” newborns at once. Now their jobs are even more difficult as they attempt to care for the same number of babies, but ones with often serious medical needs.
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As everyone who reads this blog knows, all of us at LWB have a tender heart for babies born with cleft lip. We have seen so many tiny babies with cleft struggle to feed in an orphanage setting. Their strong wills and determination to survive make us work even harder to make sure every baby with cleft that comes into our hands is given a second chance. We absolutely LOVE sharing their photos, but sometimes we hear from people who say they simply cannot look at the “before” photos as it makes them feel too uncomfortable. When we get those letters, we always wonder if we should stop showing so many pictures of kids with unrepaired lips. However, we always come back to the thought that perhaps if people see enough of them, they will begin to see the beauty of each child no matter how severe their cleft is.
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A facial cleft — a gap in the soft tissue, bone, or both that occurs during fetal development that involves not only the mouth and nose but also affects the rest of the face of a newborn — is extremely rare. The care involved to ensure the baby learns to suck and swallow without aspirating the fluid into their tiny lungs requires patience and skill. Fortunately, LWB’s Anhui Cleft Healing Home (ACHH) provided the perfect combination of loving care and skilled caregiving needed by one very special baby named Gavin. Here’s the story of how Gavin went from being a baby with some big health issues to the grinning, happy boy you see here!
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Our number one photo of 2009, receiving over 50% of the vote in our online poll, is from our Anhui Cleft Healing Home. This beautiful photo of one of our dedicated caregivers tenderly holding a baby shows so clearly the special bond that we wish every orphaned child could experience. Doesn’t every child born deserve to be loved in this way? On behalf of everyone at LWB, we want to thank you for joining with us to help even more children know how important they are to this world. Together we can change their lives in a very real and wonderful way.
From home to home, and heart to heart,
from one place to another.
The warmth and joy of Christmas
brings us closer to each other. –Emily Matthews
Wren of the soulful eyes lives in Fuyang Foster Care. She was also a resident of the Anhui Cleft Healing Home. Hasn’t she come a long ways in 2009?
When a thing is scarce, it is precious — Chinese proverb
When Meigan arrived at the Anhui Cleft Healing Home (ACHH) at one month old, she was very serious baby with unilateral cleft lip and palate. Her first few months at ACHH were quite uneventful, and she remained healthy. However, the caregivers could not get Meigan to interact much with them or even to attempt so much as a smile.
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As many of you may know, Anhui experienced a terrible snowstorm last week that affected 1.9 million people. Thousands of homes have collapsed, hundreds of thousands of crops have been damaged, and direct economic losses in the millions will be the result.
When we heard about the unusually early storm, we were naturally quite concerned about the 14 children and their nannies in the Anhui Cleft Healing Home (ACHH) in Hefei. Were they warm enough? How would they make out without power?
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Haley from our Huainan foster care program is so happy to show off her beautiful new smile! She was born with a bilateral cleft lip and was a resident of the Anhui Cleft Healing Home (ACHH) while awaiting her surgery. The folks at ACHH thought of her as the “big sister” of the babies because she was the oldest one in residence. They are certainly going to miss her cheerful personality but are so pleased to see her moving on to foster care.
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