The cleft lip and palate is a very common inborn physical defect which can take away a lot from young children, including a chance to live normally. A baby with a cleft lip or palate may first experience difficulty in breathing or eating. As he/she grows, he/she might experience ear infections, dental problems such as cavities and teeth missing due to malformation, and difficulty in learning how to speak and communicate. Such an abnormality can directly affect a child’s self-esteem, impairing his/her holistic social development.
Cleft Lip and Palate
The cleft lip and palate are inborn physical defects that occur just as the baby is being formed in the uterus. The bones and tissues of a fetus’ nose, mouth and upper jaw should fuse between the sixth to the tenth month of pregnancy. This formation includes the palate, which is the roof of the mouth behind the front teeth. If this formation failed to commence, a cleft lip(cheiloschisis) or a cleft palate(palatoschisis)–or both–will be the result.
In this condition, a fissure develops between the palate and the nose. The fissure will depend on the gravity of the defect, but others with this defect manifest this opening throughout the entire palate. A complete cleft palate is when both sides of the roof of the mouth is not joined in the middle. In most cases, babies born with a cleft palate also develop cleft lip, a condition wherein there is a split or a gap in the upper lip.
A cleft lip can either be unilateral or bilateral. With the former, the fissure resides only on one side of the lip, under either nostrils of the individual. Bilateral cleft lips, on the other hand, have the fissure on both sides of the lip, extending up to the nostrils.
Beginnings of Cleft Repair
With today’s technology, it has been made possible to correct this type of condition. In fact, the first evidence of a palatal operation is evidenced during 500 AD. That operation dealt with uvula inflammation. By 1552, a method was introduced with the purpose of seaming cleft palate, and Ambroise Pare later designed a prosthetic device to close palatal perforation. It was in 1764 that a French dentist succeeded in completing a cleft repair thanks to a few sutures, and hot cauterization of the edges of the palate.
Surgical Possibilities in the Modern World
The treatments and procedures has been developed through the years. Cleft surgery–or cleft repair, which is an operation done to close the cleft lip or palate–has been made accessible to the general public. The extent of the repair depends upon the immensity of the defect.
Cleft lip repair is usually done 2-3 months after birth. The surgeon trims down lip tissues and sews them together with small stitches for minimal scar development.
Cleft palate repair is done a few months later, after the palate develops further. There could be more than one surgery for this in order to complete the cleft repair. In this procedure, tissue from the palate is moved to completely cover the palate. It was in 1994 that a 2-stage cleft palate repair was advocated, with the aim of, closing the soft part of the palate earlier, and the hard part of the palate several years later.