Dear John,

Baby Henry was born with a cleft palate. Where his upper lip should have been, a large hole gaped to his nose. When Henry came to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 2011 at 9 weeks old, the accepted practice was to wait up to six months to repair a baby’s cleft. But research showed the long and arduous wait wasn’t justified—babies like Henry could benefit from intervening sooner.

Henry became one of the youngest babies in the country to have an early repair. After Henry’s surgery, CHLA’s team pioneered a shift in cleft care that has improved countless lives in the years since.

Your gift today will be MATCHED, up to $100,000, to help kids like Henry: Make a $10 donation to support our transformative research and groundbreaking, lifesaving work.

Henry at 9 weeks old at CHLA and today at age 13

CHLA’s doctors were convinced that sooner is actually better for infants like Henry, because younger babies have higher levels of estrogen and a protein that enables them to scar less and form new cartilage more easily.

Because CHLA is a research facility and a hospital, the data went straight from the lab to the operating room: Henry became “probably the earliest cleft to be repaired in the country,” says craniofacial surgeon Jeffrey Hammoudeh, MD, DDS. “We were pushing the envelope.”

Soon after Henry’s successful surgery, CHLA began doing cleft repairs routinely on babies 2 to 3 weeks old. Today, even though advances in anesthesia and surgical techniques make it even safer to operate in the first weeks of life, many hospitals lag behind CHLA. According to Dr. Hammoudeh: “We're [still] the only institution in the country that does neonatal cleft lip repairs.”

Right now, your gift can go twice as far to support the most advanced treatments for kids like Henry.

Every day, our researchers and clinicians work tirelessly to accelerate life-changing discoveries and help tens of thousands of children. Thank you for supporting this transformational work.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Carter, MBA, CFRE Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer Children's Hospital Los Angeles