Shanghai Healing Home

Today I had an incredible and heartwarming experience. I knew that Lovisa volunteers her time at a place called the Shanghai Healing Home, and I asked her to take me along while I was in town. The babies here all have some kind of physical deformity, mostly cleft lips, and as a result have been abandoned by their parents. If the babies are found in time, the government places them in large care facilities that are usually not well equipped to handle their special issues and some children die as a result. Knowing this,an amazing young woman here in Shanghai started the Shanghai healing home. http://web.me.com/christinaweidner/Shanghai_Healing_Home/Home.html

I didn't get to meet Christina, but I heard all about her and she is truly inspirational. Just 28 years old, with four children of her own, Christina founded the home less than a year ago. She and her family have been in China for about 2 years and during this time she has felt compelled to somehow help these suffering babies. She pursued and received donations from various companies, enlisted hospitals to provide free routine care and free corrective surgeries, worked with the government to get the children into her care, and works with lawyers to get the babies placed in permanent homes after their surgeries. She also has assembled a team of volunteers who care for and love the babies around the clock, as well as several full time paid ayi's/nannies who live with the babies. In this short time she has also become fluent in Mandarin. Did I mention that she is only 28 years old, with 4 children of her own under the age of 7!!?? Absolutely incredible. Add to this that she is now personally and permanently adopting one of the babies, Sabrina. (Lovisa's favorite! See the picture of beautiful Lovisa holding the lovely Sabrina. I fell in love with the little boy in the crib).

I was overwhelmed during my visit. Overwhelmed by the work being done by Christina and all her volunteers, overwhelmed by the sweetness and beauty of these babies, overwhelmed by the sadness that someone would just throw these babies away.... and overwhelmed by what a difference one person can make in the lives of so many people. These babies lives have been saved and changed forever. I am not so worried about the babies in this care center, they have so much love, in fact there were more caregivers than babies when I visited, we were all angling to get our hands on them! And they will get the care they need and deserve. And probably they will all be adopted into permanent homes. Yes, they need money to function properly, but I feel positive that Christina and her team will find a way. (If you have ever been so inclined to sponsor a child, or even just make a one time donation, please see the above link to do so. 100% goes to support the beautiful babies in this center)

But I do worry about all the other babies that don't find their way here... the stories I heard today would break your heart. Babies with cleft lips are extremely hard to feed. They can not suck because of their deformity and it takes can take three times as long to feed them. In mass nurseries they just can not devote the time necessary to the babies and they frequently don't make it. In addition, these babies burn many calories just trying to drink the formula, causing them to need even more in order to gain weight. It's an extremely difficult road. The babies have to reach a certain weight in order to receive the surgery, but I'm not clear on how often this happens in government facilities.

In a certain part of China cleft palate is very common, they don't know if it's environmental or genetic. These babies are most often abandoned as families can not afford the care necessary or simply don't want the malformed baby. But, the surgery is relatively easy and the results are astonishing. One of the SHH babies, Anna, had just returned from her surgery and she looked completely normal and beautiful with just the smallest scar barely visible. It is beyond sad that many of these babies won't even get the chance to be helped.

Still, I was so impressed with the Shanghai Healing Home and so heartened by the warmth in the room. I had thought I would be unbearably sad after my visit, but my larger emotions were ones of love and happiness that this place exists. Tonight I hugged my babies a little tighter, felt extremely grateful, and also very inspired.