Behind every smile there’s an extraordinary caregiver

We provide support, practical guidance, community, and resources for cleft-affected families.

Practical Support for Parents of Babies with Cleft Lip & Palate

About Behind the Smile

If you're reading this, you likely have a child with a cleft lip and/or palate or recently received the diagnosis. Welcome.

I built Behind the Smile because when we got our cleft diagnosis, I couldn't find what I needed. There was clinical information on one end and personal stories on the other — but not much in between. No practical, parent-built guide to walk me through what was coming. So I made one.

Behind the Smile is a resource hub for cleft parents, created by a cleft parent. It isn't medical advice — it's the guide I wish I'd had.

The Early Cleft Years Course

Feel prepared instead of overwhelmed. The course guides parents from diagnosis through age 2, with short, practical videos on feeding, pre-surgical care, surgery, post-op healing, and more. Every module blends extensive research with practical wisdom from the cleft parent community — eight modules of fact-checked, parent-tested guidance you can take at your own pace.

Take the Course

Help us make the cleft journey a little easier for families. By making a donation or sponsoring a Cleft Care Package, you provide practical education, essential feeding tools, and meaningful support to families when they need it most. We’re so grateful you’re here!

Make a Donation

Sponsor a Cleft Care Package

A woman with long brown hair smiling while holding a laughing baby with a nasal cannula, sitting on a beige couch in a well-lit room.

Handwritten text saying 'hey there!' in a casual script font

IT’S LOVELY TO MEET YOU

I'm Marina, and my son was born with a complete unilateral cleft lip and palate. By his 2nd birthday, we'd been through so much as a family — feeding challenges, nasoalveolar molding (NAM), surgeries. We were proud of how far we'd come, but also disappointed by how often we'd found the right information a week or two after we needed it. We'd spent his early years researching and problem-solving instead of enjoying this precious time. So I started building Behind the Smile with one goal in mind…

Mission: Our mission is to equip cleft parents with practical knowledge, essential feeding tools, and a welcoming community — so they feel prepared, connected, and supported.

A smiling baby with blue eyes lying on a fluffy cream-colored rug, wearing a striped green and beige sleeveless shirt and a large pink bow headband.

Behind every cleft smile is a beautiful story… and an extraordinary caregiver.

What Parents are Saying

"Behind the Smile has been such a helpful, reassuring resource as I prepare to welcome my baby with a cleft, and I especially appreciated the real family stories and feeding information. Having everything explained in such a clear, caring way has helped me feel more prepared and less alone. Thank you for putting so much care into supporting familiesand for the thoughtful gift of the Pigeon bottle, Dr. Brown’s bottle, and sweet onesie!"

— Christine (Oregon)
"As a mom going through the cleft diagnosis journey, this course was incredibly helpful. There are so many unknowns when you first receive a diagnosis, and it can feel overwhelming trying to find reliable information and make sense of everything. You can truly see how much time, research, and care went into creating this course. The amount of work put into answering so many of the questions and unknowns that parents face really shows. It took such a stressful and overwhelming process and made the information feel much more condensed, organized, and accessible. Instead of spending hours searching and trying to piece everything together on my own, I had so much valuable information in one place. I’m so grateful for the time and heart that went into creating this for other cleft moms. It made me feel more informed, prepared, and less alone during a really emotional time. I would absolutely recommend this course to any parent navigating a cleft diagnosis."

— Kara (Maryland)