1 in every 700 babies is born with a cleft lip, cleft palate, or both.

Relying on the condition, the baby with cleft lip can receive nutrition right as they will be able to eat unproblematically. But, the baby born with cleft palate needs a special baby feeding bottle having special nipples as they will not be able to eat properly and cannot be breastfed.

In short, the baby will demand special assistance to eat normally and it can be achieved with the proper supervision and guidance of the pediatrician. In most cases, special feeding techniques are a necessity.

Most infants with cleft lip and palate tend to experience difficulty in speaking, talking, learning, and speech problems. To correct the condition, you must approach the speech pathologist, who will help the child in speech development. The child must be monitored, recurrently. The parents should not delay it and start the intervention timely.

If the child has no trouble talking, then all you need is to perform regular assessments to make sure the child is having no difficulty.

Not necessarily!

About 50% of children having clefts are born with both cleft lip and cleft palate. Where almost 25% are born with only the cleft lip, the remaining 25% of children are diagnosed with only cleft palate.

If the baby is born with an isolated cleft lip and/or palate, no evident physical and cognitive abnormalities will be diagnosed except speech-language delays. Once the cleft lip and/or palate is repaired significant improvement in reading and language-based deficiencies can be observed. But, do not forget to keep a close eye to have a regular check. 

On the contrary, the children born with cleft lip and/or palate are at a higher risk of mental and motor developmental delay