It was very heartening to see that a documentary made on setting a birth defect right won an Oscar. Even in the 21st century people consider such defects an unlucky omen. very sad indeed. I would like to tell about myself who am one with a similar defect, now 56 yrs old. Born in '52 i had cleft lip and a cleft palate by birth. My father was then doing his medical intrernship at madras medical college and my mother was 19 yrs old.following the advice of his professor my lip was corrected when i was about 4 months old. however the palate surgery was done when i attained 4 years old at Vellore hospital by one Dr. Ferguson who then made periodic visits to India to attend to such cases. The surgery was partially successful. part of the palate remained unclosed.My parents didn't want to risk another surgery and so left it at that. at the age of 10 i started using a plastic plate to cover the gap which improved my speech. At the age of 18 the dentist i consulted at Chennai got a metal plate for the palate which to this day i use!!! I would like to tell all those who are interested in such cases certain important things. treat the child as normally as you would do any other child. My brother and sister and I grew up getting equal attention from all at home. i was sent to the best of schools and encouraged to pick up fine arts like music etc.at school i was the pupil leader and in college union president.I was always a good orator and now I am the principal of a CBSE school at Agra
