Reason to smile

Every year, almost 35,000 infants are born with cleft lip and palate

Some believe that it’s a sign of bad luck or bad karma. Others believe that it is caused when a pregnant woman is exposed to an eclipse. A recent conversation with Pankaj Raisingh Dodhia from Gujarat’s Dahod district made me realise that the biggest problem with the condition of cleft palate/lip is the lack of awareness about it. “When my daughter Mital was born, we had no idea what was wrong with her, let alone how to help her,” he told me. The newborn had a split in her upper lip, she was unable to be breastfed. The midwife who