Scots mum 'blamed herself' after finding out 'wee trooper' daughter would be born with cleft lip
dailyrecord.co.ukA Scottish nursery worker says she spent months blaming herself after discovering her daughter would be born with a cleft lip.
Claire Rutherford, 23, was surprised to discover she was pregnant after undergoing surgery for endometriosis and going on the pill.
However, the excitement of welcoming a child of her own into the world was replaced with anxiety when a 16 week scan revealed that her little girl Isla would be born with the defect.
A cleft lip or palate - the roof of the mouth - affects one in every 700 babies born in the UK and can cause problems with eating, drinking, hearing and speech if untreated.For Dalkeith resident Claire, who had been abuzz at the prospect of becoming a mum for the first time, it became a difficult time.She blamed herself for the defect despite the causes of clefts being complex and often not being attributed to a single defining factor.She said: "I was very upset - I thought I'd done something."I went for a private scan at 16 weeks to find out the gender and the nurse stopped during the scan and said: 'I think there's something wrong.'"It was an awful moment - Isla's dad wasn't there as he didn't want to find out the gender so I was on my own."The way the nurse told me I thought: 'what on earth have I done?'"I just had this daunting feeling of anxiety - I had no idea what to expect."The scan image showed Isla covering her mouth with her hand in the womb - thought to be a telltale sign of a cleft lip.
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