Question

Mandy just gave birth vaginally to her first child. Mandy and James had attended prenatal classes and had a natural childbirth. They were totally unprepared to see that baby “Rose” has a severe left-sided unilateral cleft lip and cleft palate. James is having a hard time with this and just keeps staring at the baby. Mandy begins to cry and states “I thought I was going to breast-feed my baby and now it’s impossible.”

A. Discuss the implications for bottle feeding and breast-feeding a baby with a unilateral cleft lip. Is it possible for Mandy to breast-feed Rose?

B. What is involved in the surgical correction of the defect? When can she eventually have a “normal” mouth and facial features?

C. What other problems may develop for Rose since she has this type of defect?

Answer 1

. Discuss the implications for bottle feeding and breast-feeding a baby with a unilateral cleft lip. Is it possible for Mandy to breast-feed Rose?

Cleft lip alone is not a contraindication for breast feeding, the thing is that the position must be used by the mother in a such a way that nipple should be placed between the gaps of the lip and make sure that milk is not going out. This manner the baby can be breast fed.

B. What is involved in the surgical correction of the defect? When can she eventually have a “normal” mouth and facial features?

When the child is around 3 to 6 months old the correction for cleft lip can be done. Here the surgery was done under general anaesthesia and trim the tissue and sew the lip together, the stiches will be very small so that there won’t be any cosmetic problem for the child and most of the time it will be absorbable so that no need to remove the suture

What other problems may develop for Rose since she has this type of defect?

The child may not have any long-term complication apart from the cosmetic problem. In some cases, there will be delay in speech because they were not able use the muscles, if there is cleft palate and other problems may be associated with cleft lip.