Name: Kevin
Age: 5 years
Country: Jalisco, Mexico
"You have to be careful of him, otherwise he might eat you up"
Esperanza, Kevin's mother:
"I was only 16 when I had Kevin. Although I had an ultrasound, I didn't know he had a cleft lip and palate. It was terrible to see him. We were so scared – it felt like God was punishing us for something we'd done. I couldn't breastfeed Kevin because of his cleft palate. He couldn't latch on. I had to use a breast milk pump and feed him with a syringe. He lost weight and I became more and more desperate. It took a month before I got hold of a special bottle and started using formula.”
”He's always been a happy boy, even if people have stared at him. But once I heard a woman say to her child, 'You have to be careful of him, otherwise he might eat you up'. As if he was a monster! I shouted at her and said that I was very proud of my son and that he's a clever, intelligent boy. Kevin's always known that he's different; he would often grab his mouth and ask why he was born like this but no one else.”