Newborn with cleft lip abandoned at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital

A newborn baby girl born with a cleft lip has been abandoned by her mother at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.

According to a report by citinewsroom.com on December 3, 2025, the mother reportedly left the hospital on Friday, November 28, after discovering her baby had a cleft deformity and has not returned since.

Hospital authorities are currently making efforts to locate the mother, while the infant remains under the care of a midwife at the facility.

Mother abandons deformed baby at the Korle-bu Teaching Hosptial

Operation Smile Ghana, an organisation that provides free cleft lip and palate surgeries, has, meanwhile, stepped in to support the child.

“We have accepted to put the child on our nutritional support until the child attains the right age. If all goes well, by the grace of God, the child will be operated on in the first or second quarter of next year to ensure she survives. Our aim is to ensure the child receives adequate support and undergoes reconstructive processes so that the mother may one day see the child and regret her actions,” said Peter Kwaku Titiati, Country Director for Operation Smile Ghana.

According to the Ministry of Health, more than 400 children are born with cleft conditions in Ghana each year.

Miles for smiles adventure - Running along the coastline of Ghana for corrective surgery

The stigma associated with the condition often leads some parents to hide their babies, and in extreme cases, to abandon or harm them.

In 2025 alone, 120 children diagnosed with cleft conditions across the Central, Western, and Western North regions have received corrective surgeries.

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