By Afsun Qureshi

Cleft lip and palate are fairly serious birth defects. They are the fourth most common congenital abnormalities, affecting about one in 700 newborns. As their names suggest, the deformities are marked by obvious gaps in either the lips and nose or the roof of the mouth, due to incomplete fusing. Besides affecting a child's appearance, cleft lip and palate hinder the ability to breathe, eat, hear and speak. Correcting the effects involves many successive operations and years of therapy, but can still leave behind scars, speech impediments and emotional damage.

Chung and Buchman have seen the effects directly in their work: More than 100 cases of cleft lip and palate repair and related procedures are seen at the University of Michigan each year.

Besides plastic and reconstructive surgeons Buchman and Chung, the University of Michigan Craniofacial Anomalies Program includes 47 specialists and health professionals, including dentists, neurosurgeons, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, orthodontists, otolaryngologists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, geneticists, nutritionists, and pediatricians. The program was started in 1955 and aims to treat both the physical and psychological needs of each patient. Even with multidisciplinary care, the authors say the condition is not easy to treat.

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