Smiles From Derek

Smiles From Derek I've created this page for you to follow Derek's journey through his many situations due to his cleft lip and palate. We'd also like to raise awareness.

On February 21, 2011 my son, Derek, blessed our lives! He was born with a cleft lip and palate. We, are fortunate enough to have great insurance and a wonderful team of doctors to take care of him and his many surgeries. Unfortunately, there are far too many little ones who are not as lucky as we are. I founded this site to help raise awareness and funds to donate to the Smile Train Foundation. It

is a foundation that brings plastic surgeons to other, underprivileged countries to help fix the cleft lips and palates. As of now, they are only able to help a small handful of kids at a time. My goal is to raise a decent amount of money for them, so they can help bring a few more smiles to these other families!

08/28/2016

A growing number of abortions are being carried out due to a cleft palate or lip – a condition which causes a gap in the roof of the mouth, upper lip or both, but is usually easily fixed by surgery.

05/16/2016

When I first found out that my Frankie would be born with a severe cleft lip and palate, my thoughts immediately turned to his future and I thought there was a very strong possibility that he would…

04/16/2016

What all cleft parents would like friends and family to know:

Clefts are generally more than just a noticeably different lip. Children born with clefts often experience issues with speech development and difficulty with eating, proper breathing, and regular hearing levels. Later on, teeth usually require special help with years of orthodontics and sometimes jaw surgery. Lip and nose correction/reconstruction are often common and are not only for physical appearance. Many times getting the initial lip repair is only the beginning. In the end, although everything is very hard - it is all worth it. These cleft journeys end in being and children usually grow into more empathetic individuals as they have been through so much and they know how to give kindness.

How awesome!!
04/04/2016

How awesome!!

This is a really positive addition to the toy market!

03/30/2016

Leading scientists have identified an important gene that is associated with cleft lip and palate.

03/08/2016

The skull of a cleftie 💀

Such love!!
03/04/2016

Such love!!

Reuny Felix lives deep inside the Amazon Rainforest, hours away from the nearest health facility, in a protected area reserved for members of the Ticuna tribe.

Good info!
02/16/2016

Good info!

Orofacial clefts, or cleft lip and cleft palate, are among the most common birth defects. In fact,according to KidsHealth, about 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 babies in the U.S. is born with clefts. Th...

Pretty cool!
02/13/2016

Pretty cool!

Famous People with a Cleft Tutankhamun - (1341 BC - 1323 BC) was an Egyptian Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty (ruled 1333 BC - 1324 BC in the conventional chronology), during the period of Egypti...

So cool!
02/13/2016

So cool!

A cleft palate occurs when the gap in the palate fails to close during the early stages of pregnancy, and though the condition is related to cleft lip.

02/10/2016

I love the face my son was born with, cleft lip and palate and all. I’m certain we did the right thing by correcting it, but I ache as I miss his triangular “before” smile.

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Arlington Heights, IL

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