The  activities of illegal mining commonly known as 'galamsey' has been linked to the increase in birth defects among newborns and infants in the country. Accordingly, health experts have stressed the need for urgent steps to curb the menace, and other envi­ronmental degradation activities that pose health risks to the population. "We do know that heavy metals and some of these chemicals ad substances used in the galamsey activities can actually cause birth defects like Cleft so if you have a situation where your water bodies or your food sources get contaminated with a lot of these heavy metals, thechances of you getting children born with these abnormalities are higher. "We do not have to wait for the worst to happen before we take action.It is important for all of us to take the necessary steps to make sure that our water and our food sources stay free from such contamination," Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah,the Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), cautioned. Speaking at the launch of this year's Cleft Awareness Week in Accra on Friday, Dr Ampomah dis­closed that Ghana records one case of Cleft lip or palate in every 1,000 babies born while globally, a child is born with the condition inevery three minutes. Cleft, which is a gap or split in the upper lip or the roof of the mouth (palate), occurs during pregnancy when parts of a baby's face do not join together properly resulting inchallenges with eating, breathing, hearing, and speaking. Although Cleft lip or palate could also be geneticas a result of issues like vitamin deficiency, some medi­cations or toxins a pregnant woman may be exposed to, Dr Ampomah­said the condition could be surgical­ly corrected within 45 minutes.