Daniel's journey from his first feeds to speech therapy

A difficult first week

Daniel is the first child of Rehema, who had hoped he would be an early Christmas gift to her young family. He was born at Murchison Bay Hospital after a pregnancy with no complications, a healthy baby weighing 3.2kg.

Daniel was born with a cleft lip and palate. Rehema had never seen a child with a cleft before, and she wondered what she had done wrong during her pregnancy.

Her midwife, Joyce, counselled her. She explained that the baby was fine, that clefts occur more often than people realise, and that they can be repaired. She wrote a referral letter to CoRSU straight away. When Daniel was discharged a day later, he was brought directly to the hospital.

Daniel could not latch onto his mother's breast. He cried a lot and had started to lose weight. At three days old he had dropped from 3.2kg to 2.8kg, and Rehema was worried about how to help her child. Her own mother, Daniel's grandmother, was an immense support during those first three days.

Care at CoRSU

Christmas was a day away. The nutrition team decided to keep Daniel for a week of nutrition rehabilitation, concerned that he would be at risk at home and that the family would be under great stress during the festivities.

Daniel responded well to the nutrition supplements and reached 3.4kg within a week. He went home with a nutrition package of milk, sunseed oil and sugar to last one month. In the months that followed, Rehema continued to express milk, supplemented it with the nutrition basket provided by CoRSU, and kept up high levels of hygiene.

When Daniel came back for review he weighed 5.8kg and was in excellent health. His first surgery was done at eight months, when he weighed 7.4kg, and his palate surgery followed at one year.

Daniel now

At two years old, Daniel started speech and language therapy to help him speak clearly.

Rehema is grateful to the CoRSU team. She says she had no idea how to support her child, and fears her son could have died without the support and comprehensive care.

“My special appreciation to donors who save poor mothers like me.”

Smile Train and Transforming Faces are the primary donors for all cleft lip and palate surgeries at CoRSU. Daniel's story is one of hundreds that the cleft team sees. Mobilisation drives in rural Uganda raise awareness, and CoRSU continues to receive patients with cleft lip and palate from all over the country.