Cleft Palate

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A cleft of the lip and/or palate (CL/P) occurs in 1 child per 1000 births, making it one of the most common birth defect (Carol, 2). However, the rate is affected by whether a cleft occurs in both lip and palate or only in the lip. The frequency also changes with the different ethnic and geographic regions. A cleft lip has a gap in the lip where the muscle, skin, and lining are missing in which the nostrils are stretched in one direction from the pull of muscles from one side of the face Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate (Seattle Children’s Hospital, 1). The gap may also extend to the nose depending on the severity of the cleft lip. This cleft is usually diagnosed at birth, and sometimes before birth through ultrasounds. However, a cleft palate is noticeable only when the mouth is open. A cleft palate is a gap in the roof of a baby’s mouth which makes a diagnosis difficult. Sometimes, however, the diagnosis of a cleft palate may go unnoticed until reports …show more content…
There are two different types of clefts, syndromic and non-syndromic. However, significant overlay between the two occur (Stanier and Moore, 1). The syndromic forms involve one or more phenotype changing, making it difficult to track and locate the exact gene, gene mutation, or other factor causing CL/P. Non-syndromic forms of CL/P occur in isolation from other phenotypes or abnormalities. Non-syndromic forms are the easiest to pin-point, and with the addition of approximately seventy percent of CL/P being non-syndromic, non-syndromic forms are the most commonly studied. They are the most studied because they promise a solution to the CL/P faster than finding syndromic forms. The different forms of CL/P result in a multitude of genes and their mutations needing to be studied. Some genes will cause a cleft lip, others a cleft palate and even some will cause