Look At Them Smile!
Millions of children who suffer from cleft lip and palate in the developing world do not have much access to surgery.
So an organization called The Smile Train charity brought from rural China a couple of kids to give them a second chance. CBS News This Morning reports.
Yi Yun, 11, and Shan Furong, 8, were born with cleft lip and palate birth defects and were brought to America for the experience of a lifetime.
"The goal is to give them a second chance," says Delois Greenwood of the Smile Train charity.
"They were amazing kids beforehand abandoned because of their deformity and generally ostracized, and they are really survivors with great courage before they came over," she adds.
Their trip included a visit to a Hollywood animation studio in California for a high-tech computer scan to document their condition and surgery in New York to change their appearance forever.
This week, they were back at the animator's studio to take off their bandages and reveal their brand new faces and what a difference a few hours of surgery makes!
They were both scanned once again as part of a plan to make a before-and-after animated computer model to help teach surgeons in the developing world how to perform cleft lip and palate surgery.
"They really look pretty good it's a little swollen and there's a little bit of redness in their scars as you might expect but I think you're already getting a pretty good idea of how it's going to look in the end," says Dr. Court Cutting.
For these two lucky kids things are looking pretty good and they're not missing many chances to test out their new smiles.
"They're beginning to get a feeling that a big change has occurred for them," notes Dr. Cutting.
"The little boy, at the end I guess he may have gotten a little coaching, he said, 'Thank you, Dr. Cutting' in English which was really pretty impressive," he adds.
This dramatic surgery will allow them a normal life. Thursday, they both go back to China. Yi Yun goes back to a foster family and Shan Furong goes to an orphanage.
There's a doctor in Beijing who'll take care of them from here on out, says Greenwood. Dr. Cutting will be back in China to check up on them in March.
For more information visit The Smile Train Web site.
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