Cambodia: Week Eight

This week at both the National Paediatric Hospital (NPH) and Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC) we have seen a lot of parents whose babies are having difficulty feeding.

Babies born with a cleft lip and particularly those with a cleft palate often have problems taking milk and gaining weight. Babies born with a cleft lip struggle to form a seal around a teat. This means they may take in extra air with the milk, causing the baby to become bloated and uncomfortable. These babies need frequent winding.

Babies born with a cleft…

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Cambodia: Week Seven

Week 7

This week we have been thinking a lot about the speech difficulties that can occur as a result of cleft palate. We have been dealing with a variety of speech difficulties since our arrival here in Cambodia, and this week we saw twin boys, aged 7, who had both had cleft lip and palate repairs. It was clear to us that both Samnang and their mother have worked hard to improve their articulation, and the boys themselves are beginning to self-correct when they make a mistake in speech. When they were younger, both boys learned to say some…

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02 NOV 2012

Ring out the pumpkins, ring in the mince pies! With Halloween done and dusted it is time for the skeletons and witches to go away and for the Christmas tinsel to go up. We can finally throw ourselves fully into the Christmas build up. Many of our Branches are holding a Christmas Party this year and all our members are welcome to attend. This is also the best time to stock up with Christmas decoration and do the gift shopping to beat the crowds. CLAPA is inundated with Christmas Card orders; it is only…

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Cambodia: Weeks Five and Six

Week 5 was a relaxing week for us as the Children's Surgical Centre (CSC) closed it's doors to patients for the Pchum Ben festival, giving us a chance to visit the famous temples of Ankor Wat.
 
Sadly during this week, the Cambodian king passed away and the country paid their respects with a week of official mourning. Despite this, we managed to see some patients at the National Paediatric Hospital (NPH) and deliver some training to Alin, the resident speech advisor. We discussed with Alin how a selection of toys might be useful…

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19 OCT 2012

The last two weeks were very quiet here in CLAPA Head Office as many of us were enjoying our belated summer holiday desperately wanting to bottle up some last minute sunshine. Now we are all back to the office with full force and recharged batteries and all the holiday excitement seems so far away. We may have been quiet in London but not so much in the regions.

In the English Heritage building of Walnutree Manor, Suffolk, 19 children with cleft got together to have a fun weekend away. They not only had…

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