The splitting of the palate (rupture of the palate) is a congenital gap in the middle part of the palate, which arose as a result of the non-growth of 2 halves of the palate during the period of the embryonic development of the baby.
Only part of the palate may be affected, such as only the soft palate or uvula, or the cleft may extend along its entire length, combined with bilateral clefts in the anterior part of the maxilla; not often such children are born with a cleft lip.
The reasons
In most cases, the root cause of the birth of such a baby is heredity. Significant risk factors are considered alcohol, smoking, age of the mother (birth after 35 years).
Symptoms
This manifestation of pathological development is classified into 4 types of its manifestation in appearance:
- non-occlusion of the soft palate,
- cleft of the soft and part of the hard palate,
- complete unilateral cleft of the soft and hard palate
- complete 2-sided non-fusion.
Diagnostics
You can find out about the presence of such a defect in an infant with the help of ultrasound, but, unfortunately, only in very late periods of pregnancy.
Treatment
Treatment of this disease is carried out by a surgical method, by plastic surgery. The operation is performed in stages and more than once, the number depends on the degree of development and can be from 2 to 7 times. Surgeons perform it at different ages, starting from 3 months. Unfortunately, scars from such operations still remain, but this is better than doing nothing.
There are cosmetic surgeries and techniques to improve the appearance of the baby. The main thing is to do this at preschool age, so as not to disturb the psyche of the baby, when he begins to understand that something is wrong in him and he is not as beautiful as everyone else. In general, it is better to carry out a complex of plastic surgeries before the age of three, so that the defect of the palate does not affect the formation of speech in the child.