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CLEFT PALATE
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CLEFT See also:PALATE and See also:HARE-See also:LIP, in See also:surgery. Cleft Palate is a congenital cleavage, or incomplete development in the roof of the mouth, and is frequently associated with hare-lip. The See also:infant is prevented from sucking, and an operation is necessary. Cleft-palate is often a hereditary defect. The most favourable See also:time for operating is between the See also:age of two See also:weeks and three months, and if the cleft is closed at this See also:early date, not only are the See also:nutrition and See also:general development of the See also:child greatly improved, but the See also:voice is probably saved from much of the unpleasant See also:tone which is usually associated with a defective roof to the mouth and is See also:apt to persist even if a cleft has been successfully operated on later in childhood. The greatest advance which has been made in the operative treatment of cleft palate is due to the teaching of Dr Truman W. Brophy, who adopted the ingenious See also:plan of thrusting together to the See also:middle See also:line of the mouth the halves of the palate which nature had unfortunately See also:left apart. But, as noted above, this operation must, to give the best results, be undertaken in the earliest months of See also:infancy. After the cleft in the palate has been effectually dealt with, the hare-lip can be repaired with ease and success. Hare-lip.—In the hare the splitting of the lip is in the middle line, but in the human subject it is on one See also:side, or on both sides of the middle line. This is accounted for on developmental grounds: a cleft in the exact middle line is of extremely rare occurrence. Hare-lip is often associated with cleft palate. Though we are at See also:present unable to explain why development should so frequently See also:miss the See also:mark in connexion with the formation of the lip and palate, it is unlikely that maternal impressions have anything to do with it. As a See also:rule, the supposed " fright" comes See also:long after the lips are See also:developed. They are completely formed by the ninth See also:week. See also:Heredity has a powerful See also:influence in many cases. The best time for operating on a hare-lip depends upon various circumstances. Thus, if it is associated with cleft palate, the See also:palatine cleft has first to be closed, in which See also:case the child will probably be several months old before the lip is operated on. If the infant is in so poor a See also:state of nutrition that it appears unsuitable for surgical treatment, the operation must be postponed until his See also:condition is sufficiently improved. But, assuming that the infant is in See also:fair See also:health, that he is taking his See also:food well and thriving on it, that he is not troubled by vomiting or See also:diarrhoea, and that the hare-lip is not associated with a defective palate, the sooner it is operated on the better. It may be successfully done even within a few See also:hours of See also:birth. When a hare-lip is unassociated with cleft palate, the infant may possibly be enabled to take the See also:breast within a See also:short time of the See also:gap being closed. In such a case the operation may be advisably undertaken within the first few days of birth. The case being suitable, the operation may be conveniently undertaken at any time after the tenth See also:day. (E. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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