CLEFT DEFORMITIES

Cleft lip and palate are congenital facial deformities are easily repaired. Specifically, cleft lip deformities occur when the muscle and skin of the upper lip do not fuse together properly. Cleft palate deformities occur when the bones and muscle that make up the roof of the mouth do not fuse appropriately. Both deformities create a functional problem, affecting ones’ ability to eat and develop proper speech. Further, cleft lip deformities have an associated social stigma, due to its facial disfigurement. In traditional cultures such as Bangladesh, children with clefts are often ostracized by their community, resulting in social isolation from the rest of Bengali society. Mothers of these children are often blamed as there is a belief the cleft lips occur when pregnant women cut vegetables and fish during an eclipse. 
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Babies born with cleft deformities typically require care thru their early twenties – adjunctive procedures, such as speech therapy, orthodontics, orthognathic surgery, dental implants, and rhinoplasty are all performed on cleft patients as they develop. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, a comprehensive care system for cleft patients does not exist. It is a future goal of Smile Bangladesh to develop a multidisciplinary cleft center within the country to perform these secondary procedures.

BANGLADESH

Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. The name Bangladesh means "Country of Bangla" in the official Bangla language. The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal and India in 1947, when the region became the eastern wing of newly formed Pakistan. However it was seperated by the western wing by 1,600km (994 ml) of Indian territory. Political and linguistic discrimination as well as economic neglect led to popular agitations against West Pakistan, which led to the war for independence in 1971 and the establishment of Bangladesh. 

​After independence, the new state endured famines, natural disasters and widespread poverty, as well as political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative calm and economic progress. Bangladesh is the seventh most populous country (pop. 162 million) and is among the most densely populated countries in the world with a high poverty rate. Geographically, the country straddles the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones. Bangladesh has the largest unbroken sea beach in the world in the Cox's Bazaar. The government is a parliamentary democracy.

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