Cleft Lip/Cleft Palate

Cleft Lip & Cleft Palate

During the first 6 to 10 weeks of pregnancy, the bones and tissues of a baby's upper jaw, nose, and mouth normally come together (fuse) to form the roof of the mouth and the upper lip. A cleft happens when parts of the lip and mouth do not completely fuse together.

A cleft lip may just look like a small opening on the edge of the lip, or it could extend into the nose. It may also extend into the gums. A cleft palate can vary in size. It could affect just the soft palate, which is near the back of the throat, or it also could make a hole in the hard palate toward the front of the mouth. 

A cleft lip is usually surgically repaired in the hospital using general anesthesia when a child is 3 to 6 months old. If the cleft lip is wide, special procedures like lip adhesion or a molding plate device might help bring the parts of the lip closer together before the lip is fully repaired. Cleft lip repair usually leaves a small scar on the lip under the nose. At 9-12 months of age, a cleft palate usually can be repaired. Plastic surgeons connect the muscles of the soft palate and rearrange the tissues to close the cleft. This surgery requires general anesthesia and a short hospital stay for recovery.

CDC recently estimated that, each year in the United States, about 2,650 babies are born with a cleft palate and 4,440 babies are born with a cleft lip with or without a cleft palate.

Improving Outcomes with Amnio Technology

Amnion-derived allografts have been an effective modality to reduce scarring, minimize risk of adhesions, and return tissue to a pre-wound state.  Amnion-derived therapies work by releasing essential Growth Factors as well as recruiting stem cells to the site of damage to promote tissue regeneration.  Stem cells are primitive cells that can undergo differentiation to form different types of cells in the body, such as bone, blood, cartilage, tendon, ligaments, etc. These cells are responsible for healing tissue damages by generating new healthy cells. However, with age, the body loses its ability to attract enough stem cells to the site of injury. In this regard, amnio therapy delivers a high concentration of proteins, carbohydrates, cytokines, keratinocytes and growth factors to feed stem cells at the affected area to promote rapid, natural healing and tissue regeneration.