Ms. Cathy Que, Division Marketing Manager for Infant Products of Richwell Phils. Inc., Pigeon’s exclusive distributor in the country, personally turned over donations to Operation Smile Philippines Makati head office last July 29. 108 pcs. Manual Breast Pump, 240 pcs. Nursing Bottle for Cleft Palate, and 240 pcs. Post-op Bottles were donated to Operation Smile Philippines for their Nutrition Program. 

Present to receive the donations were Operation Smile Philippines’ Executive Director Mr. Emilio Romano and Operation Smile Regional Director for Asia Mr. Kevin Thor. 

Helping Children Live Happier and Healthier Lives 

Specializing in expert cleft surgery and care, Operation Smile Philippines provides free reconstructive facial surgery to indigent Filipino children and young adults born with cleft lip and cleft palate deformity. According to them, a baby is born with a cleft every three minutes, and one in five hundred children in the Philippines has a cleft lip or palate conditions. While they have already assisted more than 33,000 patients in the country, they estimate that five million people with cleft worldwide still need help. 

Aside from assisting those with cleft and palate to pay for surgery, particularly those with limited or no financial resources, Operation Smile Philippines runs nutritional monitoring programs as babies need to be healthy before an operation. With their partnership with Pigeon, a Japanese brand known for its high-quality baby and mother care products such as baby feeding bottles, baby wipes, and breastmilk storage bags, the nutritional aspect of their comprehensive cleft care will greatly improve. This collaboration also shows Pigeon's continuous support to Filipino mothers and babies in need, a perfect way to celebrate the brand’s 65th global anniversary. 

Babies with cleft lips as young as six months old can already be operated on and one-year-old babies with cleft palate can have surgery. “At Operation Smile, we’re really focused on access to safe surgery. That’s why we say six months because that’s what we know that we can operate safely, that’s the global medical standards that we’ve established worldwide. That’s why we do lip and palate separately. When they’re getting older, we have a priority system for our patients so once they get about the age of 10 or 12, that’s when we start to do a second evaluation depending on their condition since the variations impact the safety of it…Other alterations that would support their speech is the primary thing for that case for older patients. Ultimately, we’re trying to reach patients as young as possible because they are at a lower risk with surgical care,” Kevin explained. 

Thanks to Pigeon, babies with cleft conditions can now be given proper nutrition through the tools they donated, also helping reduce patient rejection for surgery. “When we look at the patient’s malnourishment in the initial screening, we can now provide products where moms can administer proper feeding sessions, giving their child proper nutrients so that when they return, they can receive surgery,” said Emilio.  

Future Projects for Moms and Babies in Need 

Sharing the same vision of helping children live happy, healthy lives, both Pigeon Philippines and Operation Smile Philippines are looking to conduct more initiatives like this in the future. 

To learn more about Pigeon Philippines, visit their website and Facebook page. For more information about Operation Smile Philippines, check out their Facebook page.