Childrens Airway First Foundation

CAFF continued to build and improve its world class web site during the year to serve as a reliable source of information for parents, doctors, dentists, medical professionals, public health officials and educators. Medical papers, books, and recent articles on airway are sourced for easy access. The web site became operational in the late Spring 2021 and is continually being improved upon. Site visits continue to increase and have registered into the thousands. In addition to visitors from the United States, they come from all over the world with heavy traffic from China, India, and the Middle East where airway disorders are prevalent. During 2023, resources were expended to further develop the source listing of airway centric dentists to which parents could refer should they notice airway issues in their children. Since airway centric dentists are sparse, a listing is necessary when parents seek to find "who to call". Often, pediatricians have not been trained to diagnose breathing issues and also are at a loss of where to refer patients. It is estimated that the listing has already been helpful to many parents seeking help for children with airway issue symptoms.

A major CAFF accomplishment during 2023 was to raise awareness of the prevalence of upper airway breathing disorders by attending and participating in conferences and meetings with other entities promoting education and learning. CAFF has put particular emphasis on identifying problematic children under 30 months when it is easiest to correct any issues before they become systemic morbidities. Two brochures and two posters targeting parents were created for distribution to dental and pediatric offices. A free CAFF newsletter has also been created and over 3,000 registrants have subscribed to the publication. In addition,our social media following is over 3,000 users on four platforms. During 2023, CAFF co-hosted two online webinars with parents and clinicians with hundreds of attendees.

One of the first priorities was to assemble top advisory board members comprised of a diverse set of medical, dental, insurance and public health professionals. The idea was to integrate the various areas of health expertise to cover airway disorders. This was accomplished with luminaries in the field accepting appointments as identified on the CAFF web site. With a broad breadth of experience assembled, CAFF is facilitating a systemic approach to identifying children at all ages who have airway disorders affecting their life-long health. The goal is to screen, evaluate and treat all children with airway disorders. Four hundred million children worldwide are estimated to suffer some degree of breathing disorder. In 2023 several new advisory board members were appointed to broaden the expertise available to CAFF. Quarterly advisory board meeting are held to disseminate and share the latest research concerning airway issues. Currently, the board is seeking information on the success of infant airway screening which has been conducted in Brazil for several years. If successful in Brazil for identifying children breathing disorders, CAFF will work with medical and health officials in an attempt to implement such a program in the United States.

During 2023, CAFF added over 30 web casts featuring luminaries in the field (including members of the advisory board) talking about various upper airway respiratory issues affecting over 2 billion children globally. The site now has over 60 web casts. This endeavor provides information to parents who think their child may have airway issues, often being initially identified by snoring, sleeping with an open mouth, disrupted sleep, etc. This accomplishment is a subset of the CAFF web site development effort and expenses associated with this public service are included in item number one.