4th-12th May is Cleft Lip and Palate Awareness Week.

One in 700 babies is born with a cleft; that’s three every day in the UK. Already, they face a 20-year treatment pathway, with many having their first surgery at just three months old.

Between 12th April and 12th May I will be cycling 700km to raise money for CLAPA so they can support families like mine for years to come.

What better way to thank CLAPA for their support and celebrate our own, very precious, 1 in 700 than to cycle 700km. This will be done via my home exercise bike, at the gym and in the great outdoors and will require some serious dedication (and a whole lot of grinning/bearing it thanks to a dodgy knee and neck pain).

I am doing this because CLAPA is a small charity, relying on the goodness of public donations to ensure they can continue to provide essential feeding equipment and support to families just like our own and to all those affected by cleft.

When our youngest was born we were propelled into an unknown world and CLAPA were there to help us feel less alone, support us through the highs and lows of feeding, communication struggles and surgery. Whilst events and peer support prevented a sense of isolation.

I am immensely proud to say that over the last couple of years I have supported CLAPA as a volunteer myself, to assist in the training and development of over 500 midwives, with the key aim of improving diagnosis and support of cleft across the UK. Improving the journey for other families impacted by cleft would not be feasible without CLAPA, hence I urge you to support their mission this Cleft Awareness Week.

The Cleft Lip & Palate Association (CLAPA) is here to make sure no one has to go through their journey alone.

Every donation will help CLAPA to continue to provide specialist, targeted services to give people affected by cleft the knowledge and emotional support they need, while their UK-wide community brings together people from all walks of life to share experiences and learn to cope.

You can read more about our 1 in 700 here…https://mumcomms.blog/2018/05/04/one-in-seven-hundred/