Children's Craniofacial Surgery

Smile (1x2)

: 09, 2011

This programme follows the surgeons of the Children's Hospital Oxford and their young patients with disfiguring conditions. Surgery can transform their faces and their life chances; but families often have mixed feelings about surgery that, though necessary, can make their child look quite different. Salina, aged seven, has Toulouse Lautrec syndrome. Her parents are told she needs major surgery to address the way her skull is constricting her brain and her breathing. But the operation will change her face radically. 'It won't change her temperament or her character - but it will alter her face' explains surgeon David Johnson. Harry is older, and has Moebius syndrome, giving him paralysis of the facial muscles. However cheerful he feels, he can't smile. His parents left the choice of surgery up to him, and now he's elected to have a major operation called 'smile surgery' to enable him to smile for the first time. In other cases, three-month-old Alfie is transformed by cleft lip surgery, and six-month-old Daisy has surgery to address the shape of her head.