A newborn baby with a cleft lip has been abandoned by her mother at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.Citi News sources indicate that the mother secretly left the facility on Friday, November 28, after discovering that her baby had a cleft deformity, and has not returned since.
Hospital authorities are currently making efforts to locate her, while the baby remains in the care of a midwife at the facility.
Meanwhile, Operation Smile Ghana, an organisation that provides free cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries, has stepped in to offer support for 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 he survives. Ours is to ensure the interest of the child, that he is given adequate support and that he goes through the reconstructive processes to make sure the mother sees this child and regrets,” Country director for Operation Smile Ghana, Peter Kwaku Titiati, told to Citi News.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 400 children are born with cleft conditions in Ghana each year. The stigma surrounding the condition often leads some parents to hide their babies, with extreme cases involving abandonment or harm.
In 2025 alone, 120 children diagnosed with cleft conditions across the Central, Western and Western North regions have received corrective surgery.
