What are the problems associated with cleft lip and palate?
Children with a cleft lip with or without a cleft palate or a cleft palate alone often have problems with feeding and speaking clearly and can have ear infections. They also might have hearing problems and problems with their teeth.
What is the most common complication of the child has cleft palate?
Feeding difficulties occur more with cleft palate abnormalities. The infant may be unable to suck properly because the roof of the mouth is not fully formed. Ear infections and hearing loss. Ear infections are often due to a dysfunction of the tube that connects the middle ear and the throat.
What increases risk of cleft palate?
Parents with a family history of cleft lip or cleft palate face a higher risk of having a baby with a cleft. Exposure to certain substances during pregnancy. Cleft lip and cleft palate may be more likely to occur in pregnant women who smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or take certain medications. Having diabetes.
What other health issues might an infant with a cleft palate experience?
A child with a cleft palate can sometimes have other health problems, such as:
- trouble breathing.
- frequent ear infections.
- trouble feeding.
- hearing loss.
- eye problems.
- speech difficulties.
Why is cleft lip fatal?
It is not a fatal problem. Most children born with clefts do well in developed countries. They may have difficulties with feeding initially, but with proper guidance, parents learn to feed their child with a cleft, and the child learns to compensate for the cleft during the first months after birth.
Does cleft palate affect breathing?
Abstract. Clefts of the lip and palate frequently produce nasal deformities that tend to reduce the size of the nasal airway. Approximately 70% of the cleft population have nasal airway impairment and about 80% “mouth-breathe” to some extent.
Does a cleft lip affect the brain?
Cognitive deficits in syndromic clefting are frequent and often severe (mental retardation). The cognitive deficits associated with isolated clefts of the lip and/or palate (ICLP) are less severe, but the functional consequences of these deficits should not be underestimated.
Can caffeine cause cleft lip?
Data from animal studies suggest that large single doses of caffeine may cause palatal clefts as well as other birth defects (9), although studies of coffee consumption in humans have provided little evidence of teratogenic effects (10).
