Dr. Dirk Lazarus
Plastic Surgeon

Tel: 021 424 1112
Fax: 021 424 1118

86 New Church St
Tamboerskloof
Cape Town, 8001
South Africa

Clefts of the lip and/or palate are amongst the most common congenital abnormalities found in newborn babies. Although a positive family history or an environmental problem such as drugs, infections or alcohol is occasionally found, in most cases no cause is identified. Folic acid at the time of conception will help prevent the formation of clefts.

Clefts may affect the lip and nose, the palate or both the lip and palate. They may be incomplete or complete and usually on one side rather than both sides. Some may be subtle such as only a split in the muscle of the palate, but even these can cause speech problems. If you have had a child with a cleft lip or palate, the risk of having another is small.

Most children with cleft lip and/or palate can be expected to grow into normal children. Early problems with feeding can be treated with appropriate advice, the correct bottle and teat and in some instances a feeding plate may help. Surgery is usually carried out in the first year of life and at the Red Cross Children's Hospital we try to perform the primary surgery at 3-6 months of age. Children are the seen annually by the cleft team until the age of 18 years as many may require further operations to place bone into the gum, to correct the nose or the jaws or to fine tune the initial repair. The cleft team includes the speech therapist, orthodontist, maxillo-facial surgeon, ear nose and throat surgeon, etc.

With current surgical techniques and multidisciplinary team care, the cosmetic and functional outcome is highly satisfactory and likely to produce a normal adult.

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