Dr. Boustany and the dental care team at Revive Dental & Implant Center can provide oral prosthetics to support patients who have had cleft palate surgery. Soft palate prostheses help facilitate more natural swallowing and speech after surgery by covering openings in the upper palate.
What Is A Cleft Palate?
You may have heard of a cleft lip before, which is when you have a split upper lip that can affect your ability to eat and speak. While cleft lips are certainly unpleasant to deal with, a cleft palate is an even more serious condition that occurs when there is an opening between the roof of your mouth and the underside of your nose. This can cause the upper jaw to function improperly and make it difficult to close. This can cause a host of issues, from making it hard to breathe, talk, and eat to causing psychological problems because of how the condition makes you look and feel.
How Does A Cleft Palate Occur?
A cleft palate can develop during the sixth through the ninth week of pregnancy when a baby’s mouth is coming together. If the tissue that makes up the roof of the baby’s mouth is incomplete or grows unusually, an opening may appear in the front and back of the palate or only in one of those locations. This peculiar growth pattern, or lack thereof, becomes more likely if the mother is a smoker, diabetic, or uses medications to treat epilepsy during her first trimester. This type of birth defect is usually isolated, but it is still possible for other inherited genetic defects to appear along with a cleft palate.
Prosthetics for Cleft Palate
If your child suffers from a cleft palate, our goal is to offer specialized care with prosthetics that support improved oral function after corrective surgery.