Our Cleft Story

I have started this blog as a way of sharing our cleft journey with family and friends. I will continue to add to this page as we find out more and as our little boy's story progresses.

What is a cleft?

A cleft of the lip and/or palate occurs very early in pregnancy. The face and head form from back to front, normally meeting in the middle and forming the two lines under the nose and the raised ridge running down the center of the palate as they fuse. If the timing is off for some reason, the lip and/or the palate fail to fuse completely, and the resulting gap is the cleft. So far we know our baby has a unilateral cleft lip and probably palate.

 

What causes a cleft? Is it genetic or environmental, or just random?

The causes of clefting are only partially understood. In some cases it runs in families, and some ethnic groups have a higher incidence of clefting, but most of the time there is no family history and no connection to any other health problems. There are also some environmental factors which can increase the risk, such as maternal smoking, certain medications and high exposure to pesticides, but again most of the time it is just a random thing.

Clefts are the most common birth defect, affecting one in every 600 births in the U.S. Many of us know people affected by clefts, but most of the time don't realize it because of the wonderful success of repairs, which are performed so early most of us have never seen an unrepaired cleft lip.

 

Helpful resources:

The resource I think has the most helpful and accurate information is the Cleft Palate Foundation (which has information about both cleft lip and cleft palate):
http://www.cleftline.org/  

They have lots of information on there, but if you are looking for a place to start on their website, I would recommend their basic facts sheet:
http://cleftline.org/docs/PDF_Factsheets/For_Parents_of_Newborns.pdf