Infants born with cleft lips and palates: Understanding the common birth anomaly

Infants born with cleft lips and palates are more common than one might expect. One in every 700 babies is born with this birth anomaly. It occurs when an infant’s lip and/or roof of the mouth fail to fuse during embryonic development, leading to issues with feeding, speech, and hearing.

Dr. Rick Kapitan founded the Carolinas Center for Cleft Lip, Palate, and Craniofacial Surgery to offer a fresh approach to caring for children born with cleft lips and palates. The practice has three locations, including an office in Greenville’s Verdae community.

Coordinated Treatments

Fixing cleft lips and palates requires a child to undergo a series of treatments from birth until early adulthood. The center’s multidisciplinary team of specialists allows for most of those needs to be treated in-house, including oral surgery, feeding therapy, dental treatments, speech therapy, audiology treatments, and more.

Every child with this birth defect is different, and the center aims to provide personalized treatment plans based on each patient’s unique needs.

The center utilizes advanced technology for high-quality care, such as a virtual surgical planning process and 3D-printed dental implants.

Costly Care

Children with cleft lips and palates often require ongoing, expensive care. Insurance coverage for these procedures can be limited, leaving many families with significant out-of-pocket expenses. To help address this financial burden, the Face to Face Foundation provides grants to cover cleft and craniofacial treatments for eligible children.

Treatment Timeline

A child born with cleft lip and/or palate will undergo a series of treatments from infancy through early adulthood, including surgeries, therapy, and dental treatments at different stages of development.

Center Locations

The Carolinas Center for Cleft Lip, Palate, and Craniofacial Surgery has three locations in Greenville, Charlotte (North Carolina), and Columbia.

Multidisciplinary Team

The center’s team consists of specialists like oral surgeons, a pediatric dentist, an orthodontist, and more who work together to provide comprehensive care for children with cleft lips and palates, aiming to ensure the best possible outcomes.