Operation Smile Nutrition Programme

Operation Smile nutrition programmes are saving lives

Children born with cleft conditions often face major challenges with feeding and receiving proper nourishment during the critical months after they’re born. These factors can lead to malnutrition, delays in growth and development, and sometimes, even death. If a child is malnourished, it is not safe to operate on them.

Our programmes provide nutrition supplements for malnourished children and organise various workshops on nutrition, healthy food, culinary demonstration, breastfeeding, and cup feeding, all in partnership with local organisations. Through these programmes, we provide a way for parents to ensure their babies are healthy enough for surgery.

Dede Kwadjo is the team leader of Operation Smile Ghana nutrition team. In the past years, she saved hundreds of children from severe malnutrition and has provided support to mothers, fathers and families that felt hopeless.

She was very proud to share this update from the field: “We’ve held four nutrition clinics over the past weeks, and I’ve seen so many babies begin to improve. Our amazing mothers have been very cooperative. As we had limited surgical missions, mothers doing their best to make sure their children are healthy enough to receive surgery in early 2022. We constantly motivate them to do their best, so that their child could receive surgery as soon as possible.“