Overview of cleft lips and palates
A cleft lip is an opening in the upper lip. A cleft palate is an opening in the roof of the mouth. Clefts result from incomplete development of the lip and/or palate in the early weeks of pregnancy. This birth defect prevents children from eating, breathing and speaking correctly. The child's speech is delayed and inarticulate, making it extremely difficult for the child to communicate. Further complications include ear infections and severe dental and orthodontic problems. When children do not receive the required medical attention to have this disability corrected, they grow up with this disfiguration and chronic condition for life. These individuals are often ostracized from all parts of society; including school, work, social environments and sometimes even their families.

Services and programs in Central Texas
One in 600 children is born with a cleft lip and or palate each year in Central Texas. Austin Smiles collaborates with Austin Children's Hospital to perform approximately 60 surgeries annually through the Central Texas Cleft Lip and Palate Team. We ensure these children receive much needed medical care and procedures, regardless of their parents' ability to pay through our Patient's Assistance Fund. Austin Smiles' goal is that every child born with a cleft lip and/or palate in Central Texas will receive reconstructive plastic surgery which to the child's life forever. We do not want any child to unnecessarily go through life with this disability. The Austin Smiles Patient's Assistance Fund gives children without insurance the opportunity to have high quality health care, enabling them to overcome these complications.

Austin Smiles benefits the entire family of a child born with cleft lip and/or palate. From the moment a mother is aware that her child will be born with this disability, a member of the Cleft Team is available for consultation and emotional support. The Patient's Assistance Fund provides funds for reconstructive surgery and works with the family throughout childhood to treat the complications associated with having a cleft lip and/or palate. It also alleviates the financial burden that these families would otherwise face.

International services and programs
In Latin America the frequency of children born with a cleft lip and/or palate increases to 1 in every 300 children. Without reconstructive surgery, babies who are born with this deformity experience great difficulties eating. A cleft lip and palate make it complicated for the baby to maintain suction and swallow food or liquid. Because many Latin American countries are less developed, malnutrition and dehydration are serious problems particularly with children and babies. A cleft lip and/or palate greatly intensify these problems.

Three to four times every year an Austin Smiles' volunteer team, consisting of Plastic Surgeons, Anesthesiologists, Speech Pathologists, Nurses, Operating Room Technicians, and other professionals, go on medical mission trips to different locations in Mexico, Central and South America. During these week long missions, Austin Smiles performs approximately 65 cleft lip/palate surgeries for local children, between the ages of three-months and eighteen years. All services are free to patients. Because the teams of volunteers return to some of the same locations, they are also able to provide second or third surgeries for more serious cases and follow up care. Furthermore, the volunteer teams provide training seminars, during each mission, that are open to host country doctors and other health care professionals. The trainings are aimed at improving the aftercare of the patients once the Austin Smiles team completes the mission.