Baby Born With Soft Cleft Palate

This type of cleft extends from the lip to the hard or soft palate.

Baby born with soft cleft palate.

Babies with more severe clefts are not able to breastfeed. Clefting results when there is not enough tissue in. Sometimes a baby with a cleft palate may have a small chin and a few babies with this combination may have difficulties with breathing easily. A cleft palate can range from just an opening at the back of the soft palate to a nearly complete separation of the roof of the mouth soft and hard palate.

E very year in the us over 2 600 babies are born with a cleft palate and over 4 400 with a cleft lip. Cleft lip and palate develop early in pregnancy when separate areas of the face begin to develop individually and then merge. But in babies with cleft lip and cleft palate the fusion never takes place or occurs only part way leaving an opening cleft. Sometimes infants are born with a cleft lip and palate i e cleft lip palate.

Cleft lip and palate are some of the most common birth conditions that affect a baby s mouth and face. About 1 in every 2 800 babies is born with cleft lip without cleft palate in the united states. About 1 in every 1 700 babies is born with cleft palate in the united states. Infants with this type of cleft normally have extensive feeding difficulties and are often unable to breast feed successfully.

Although most babies with cleft palate can t breastfeed some babies with a small or narrow cleft of only the soft palate may be able to breastfeed. Typically clefts are isolated occurring without any other defects. A lactation specialist can teach you how to pump your breastmilk to give to your baby by bottle. Cleft lip and cleft palate are facial and oral malformations that occur very early in pregnancy while the baby is developing inside the mother.

Normally the tissues that make up the lip and palate fuse together in the second and third months of pregnancy.