Preparing For Cleft Palate Surgery

Cleft palate surgery is something that can be considered if your child has a cleft palate. This article will inform you about cleft palate surgery: what to consider beforehand, what to expect, and what happens after surgery.

Before deciding on surgery, you should familiarize yourself with what cleft palate is and how it has occurred in your child. Before a child is born, the left and right areas of the roof of the mouth grow together during normal developmental stages. However, these areas don’t always end up together and therefore cause your child to be born with a separation located at the roof of the mouth or palate. It is possible that your child can have both a cleft lip and cleft palate.

The next best thing you can do is to visit a healthcare professional. Most of the time, he or she will suggest that surgery be done to repair the cleft palate. Some individuals have very minor cleft palates that actually do not require surgery. There have been medical advances developed over the years to treat children with cleft palate. These advancements have been designed to help children with cleft palate live healthy and overall good-quality lives.

When you are consulting with a healthcare professional, he or she will first inform you what will be used during surgery and what happens during the surgical process. You will be told what type of anesthesia will be used, what the risks are, about possible complications, how recovery will go, what the costs are and what results you can expect. More importantly, you need to ask whatever question is on your mind surrounding the whole surgery and regarding what you should do after surgery.

The surgical process for cleft lip involves an incision on either side of the cleft from the mouth into the nostril. The surgeon then turns the outer portion of the cleft down and tugs the muscle and skin of the lip together to lock the separation. This closing of abnormal separation occurring in the body is similarly done for children with cleft palate.

As with most surgical procedures, risks are involved one way or another. The aim of cleft palate surgery is to close the opening located at the roof of the mouth. However, if healing doesn’t go well after surgery, the patient may still not be able to eat or speak properly, and a second operation will need to be performed.

Sometimes rehabilitation after surgery is required. Children may develop hypernasal speech and are unable to form fricatives. Rehabilitation may involve seeing a speech pathologist, palatal training, articulation training, and non-speech exercises like swallowing, sucking, and gagging.

Most of the time, health insurance policies are able to cover most or all of the costs of surgery for cleft palate. Just to be sure, it is always a good idea to double check your policy and find out if your child is covered. There may be limitations on what kinds of treatments are covered by each policy.