{"id":8995,"date":"2021-07-28T16:17:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T06:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=8995"},"modified":"2021-07-28T16:27:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T06:27:43","slug":"every-cleft-smile-tells-a-story-this-is-georgies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/every-cleft-smile-tells-a-story-this-is-georgies\/","title":{"rendered":"Every cleft smile tells a story: this is Georgie\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of hours after Georgie was born, mum Kylie was trying to feed her newborn baby girl when she started to turn blue. This is when Kylie and her husband Nathan were told that their daughter was diagnosed with cleft palate. <\/strong><\/p>\n

They had very little idea what this meant at the time or the implications it would have on Georgie\u2019s short-term and long-term future.\"\"<\/p>\n

Georgie was put into special care for the first three weeks of her life in order to learn how to feed. At this stage, she was unable to breast feed or bottle feed from a regular bottle.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, Georgie was tube fed until she was strong enough to be able to feed consistently through an artificial teat,\u201d said Kylie.<\/p>\n

Georgie was linked in with multiple services at the RCH including a paediatrician, audiology and surgeon Mr David Chong.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a surgery perspective, for her type of cleft \u2013 which was a cleft of the soft palate only \u2013 they usually perform surgery at 10-12 months of age. Until then, it became a matter of Georgie being constantly reviewed up until she was ready for surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe also had hearing tests every couple of months as children with cleft palate have a higher incidence of hearing loss. As a result of this, Georgie had some fluid on her ears and the advice was that she would need grommets inserted at the time of her cleft surgery to help drain the fluid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Georgie underwent surgery two weeks after her first birthday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSurgery was pretty traumatic for both Kylie and me. It was during COVID-19 which made it hard to be in with Georgie all the time. Being back at the RCH was pretty\u00a0mentally challenging,\u201d said dad, Nathan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Georgie\u2019s case, she was thankfully on the less severe end of the spectrum, so it all went as well as it possibly could. After she came off the anaesthetic, she was feeling pretty sorry for herself, but she has had no problems since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Functionally prior to surgery, Georgie had issues with eating and drinking. Sucking is significantly more difficult when a baby is born with a cleft palate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Georgie would drink or eat liquid type foods like soup, it would come out of her nose. She also couldn\u2019t use a straw or a sippy cup as she had no suction ability. Within a couple of weeks after surgery, she learnt how to sip through a straw and food stopped coming out of her nose! To see the change so quickly was amazing. She has come on in leaps and bounds since her surgery which was just over one year ago,\u201d said Kylie.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorgie healed pretty quickly after surgery. Her hearing is perfect now, and her speech has been the only thing slow in coming through. She is definitely on the upswing with her words forming a lot better recently. Georgie is really switched on and everything has gone as well as we could have hoped \u2013 we are both just very, very happy parents,\u201d said Nathan.<\/p>\n

Kylie and Nathan are both extremely appreciative of the care from the staff at the RCH.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very blessed to be here in Melbourne and have access to healthcare that is going to help Georgie for the rest of her life. We feel very lucky for the wonderful people who work at the RCH and are forever grateful,\u201d said Kylie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe staff were amazing, and the doctors were absolutely incredible. We couldn\u2019t speak highly enough of David and his team for caring for Georgie. They helped make it a\u00a0good experience in a challenging time,\u201d said Nathan.<\/p>\n

Cleft lip and palate awareness month is about celebrating differences and acknowledging the experiences lived behind each cleft smile.<\/p>\n

Learn more about cleft lip and cleft palate.<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every cleft smile tells a story. Two-year-old Georgie was diagnosed with cleft palate soon after she was born. Click here to read her journey!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":8998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8995"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9004,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995\/revisions\/9004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}