Cleft lip repair post op

How is cleft palate repaired? What is lip revision? Directions for post -operative care: following cleft lip repair. Cleft lip repair post -operative instructions. National Library of Medicine.

Post -Operative Instructions. The cleft of the lip can affect the right or left side (unilateral) or both sides (bilateral). In the cleft lip operation, incisions are made and the separate portions of the lip are brought together to form a single full lip. Cleft palate is a common birth defect (problem). The palate has a bony part (hard palate) in front and a soft part (soft palate) in back.

The cleft (opening) may be in the hard palate, soft palate, or both. The typical treatment is reconstructive surgery.

Baby should lie on their back during sleep to prevent trauma to sutures. The most common type of cleft lip repair is a rotation advancement repair. The plastic surgeon will make an incision on each side of the cleft from the lip to the nostril.

The two sides of the lip are then sutured together, using tissue from the area to rearrange and close the lip as needed. The post op feeding regime is usually continued for – weeks after surgery. Each surgeon has different guidelines, therefore please check with your surgeon and follow their instructions accordingly. For cleft lip only babies, it is not advisable to hold or burp baby over the shoulder.

Every surgeon has a different approach, a different technique, and therefore different post op instructions. It’s great to ask for advice from fellow cleft parents on many things, but when it comes to post op healing, you want to ensure you follow your surgeon’s specific. Your child should return to our office one week following his or her cleft lip repair. Your child had general anesthesia (asleep and not feeling pain) for the surgery. In most cases children who have a cleft lip and or palate closure are able to leave hospital and go home after a day or two.

Immediately following a lip closure parents may need time to adjust to the new look of their baby’s face and smile and they may realise that they miss the cleft. Normally, the tissues that make up the lip and palate fuse together in the second and third months of pregnancy. But in babies with cleft lip and cleft palate, the fusion never takes place or occurs only part way, leaving an opening ( cleft ).

Expert cleft surgeons can reliably rank subjects according to nasal appearance before cleft lip repair , after cleft lip repair , and at 8–years of age. Based upon those rankings, we found that pre-operative severity predicts post -operative appearance and thus studies that report outcomes need to pre-operative measures. The first surgery is called a cleft lip adhesion, and it serves to bring the two sides of the lip together, bridging the gap.

This is not meant to leave the lip anatomically correct, but will allow the tissue to stretch so that the final cleft lip repair heals without tension, leaving a prettier scar. Surgery is designed to improve a child’s ability to eat, speak and hear, and restore a more normal appearance. There are several methods of repairing a cleft lip ), and the surgeon will choose the type of repair that is appropriate depending on the type of cleft lip your baby has. For those wondering about the actual surgery… After the cleft lip and palate repair surgeries there has still been an opening in her gum line preventing teeth from growing in the space.

In the month leading up to surgery, you will attend a pre-admission appointment at the hospital where you can meet the ward team who will be looking after your baby. The ultimate goal of cleft lip and palate surgery is that the patients “look well, feed well, and speak well. To achieve these goals, much attention has been paid in the literature to the technique of repair and clinical outcomes of surgery, but little attention has been paid to morbidity and mortality accompanying cleft surgery. In any case, some authorities believe that. Try sleeping in the car seat a few times, because this is the best position to protect the lip the week after surgery.

Avoid ibuprofen or medications that could thin the blood two weeks prior to surgery. If the patient has an upper respiratory infection at the time of surgery, we will need to reschedule.