Reconstructive plastic surgery & how it has helped thousands of children with physical deformaties

Title

Reconstructive plastic surgery how it has helped thousands of children with physical deformaties

Itroduction

Plastic Surgery is a diverse field , which includes many aspects related to correction of congenital deformities , trauma , burns , and cosmetic surgery . No other surgical procedure is as difficult or as intricate as the correction of congenital deformities , and it is Plastic Surgery alone that has treated millions and millions of such unfortunate children and adults who were born with congenital deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate , ear defects , hand deformities like syndactyly

or problems of the genital system such as hypospadias to name a few . It is so satisfying to restore something that nature has taken away in a child . Some of these aspects are functional like the inability of a child to suck as in a cleft palate , or aesthetic as in a cleft palate

The purpose of this is to discuss various issues relating to reconstructive plastic surgery , and to examine how it has changed the lives of millions of people

Body

As mentioned briefly above , reconstructive plastic surgery has many aspects in relation to physical deformities in children . There are conditions like cleft palate , where the child is unable to create pressure to suck milk , and thus fails to thrive . In cleft of the lip , it is a grotesque deformity , and makes the child appear like a devil . The child faces rejection even by its parents . In situation of hypospadias the urine stream comes out from behind the tip and thus the male child cannot urinate without sitting . It is said that every male child has a right to write his name with his urine in snow standing . But such children cannot , and are thus functionally and aesthetically disturbed Let us examine some of these situations

Microtia

This is a condition where the child is born with either absence of ear or malformed ear , with many skin tags in front of the ear . Imagine a child born without an ear . Plastic Surgery is the only option in treatment of these patients . There are various procedures , which allow reconstruction of the ear , the most common being carving the ear frame work from the ribs of the patient (Microtia-Congenital Ear Deformity This procedure allows the child to be rehabilitated into society , and not face the stigma of being malformed

Cleft of the lip and palate

Since the face is the most important aspect of the body and the entry ticket to social acceptance , this physical deformity is of great pain to the parents of the child . Excellent results , approaching near normal are achievable using plastic surgical techniques of lip repair . No child with a cleft should be stigmatized , since such good treatment is easily possible . The functional aspect of the clefting , wherein the child is unable to suck milk or has repeated infections of the chest , and inability to thrive is so easily treated by surgery . Thus not only does reconstructive plastic surgery allow good social integration of the child , it...