Cleft Palate

Cleft palate, commonly called cleft palate, known as wolf’s mouth. It may coexist with cleft lip or occur as an isolated condition with a frequency of 1:2500 births. Its diversity has led researchers to many classifications, which are of scientific interest, but of little help in practice.

Many problems are caused to the newborn by the wolf mouth:

– feeding: it is unable to breastfeed due to the inability to create a vacuum in the oral cavity

– speech: later the child has a nasal speech, ‘nasal dribbling’.

– dental anomalies: reduced dental occlusion

– middle ear disease and hearing loss

Surgical correction of lyostoma only began in the 19th century. von Langenbeck was a pioneer and founder, on whose principles today’s techniques are based.

There has always been scepticism about the timing of rehabilitation. For many years, the age of 18-24 months was defined as the appropriate time for surgery.

Today it is earlier. More and more surgeons are advocating rehabilitation in 2 years. Specifically, early closure of the soft palate ( early repair ) at 3-6 months, while the hard palate is closed later ( delayed repair ) at 15-18 months, so as not to affect the development of the maxilla.

Patients are treated by a team of specialists, including a plastic surgeon, an ENT surgeon, an orthodontist and orthodontist, while orthodontic exercises are also considered necessary.