Kids who have had surgery for cleft lip/palate seem to have less visible scars than those done a generation ago.
How exactly have surgery methods improved?
In: 1809
My kid was born with a cleft lip and palate. Surprise at birth. It was not caught on ultrasound. While the initial lip adhesion was done as an infant by a plastic surgeon, there is a whole team of specialists we meet with yearly. Plastics, ortho, speech, social worker, dentist, and audiology all have a part. We started with a type of retainer that helps shape the upper jaw into a better position even before the lip surgery. Lip surgery (and nose) was done in the first year. Shortly after healing, the palate was closed. There is still a gap in the jawbone so my 5 year old thinks it’s hilarious to drink water and squeeze it out the nose. In the next year we are looking at orthodontics and a bone graft to close that. There will also be jaw surgery down the line as well as any touch-ups to the nose. A new method I’ve seen pop up is using non-surgical fillers to create facial symmetry. It isn’t as noticeable these days because all of these things together will combine to create look closer to what the patient might look like without the cleft. In years past, a couple of surgeries may restore most function but not enough to “hide” the repair. There are multiple generations of cleft patients in my family and the number of surgeries has increased quite a bit since the 40s but they aren’t all related to the initial split in the lip.
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