Parents who give birth to a child with a cleft lip or palate now have new treatment options. A new corrective procedure, offered by an orthodontist at The Montreal Children’s Hospital is delivering impressive results.

 

Dr. Broula Jamal sees between 15 to 25 children born with this anomaly every year at The Montreal Children’s Hospital.

 

During the first few moths of her life, little Johanne wore a dental apparatus to correct a facial deformity in her mouth and nose, more commonly referred to as an oral-facial cleft. Now, you wouldn’t even know it was there. After wearing an orthodontic appliance for five months without any pain, she then underwent a two hour surgery with a plastic surgeon.

 

For little Serah, who is now 4 months old, treatments began when she was just a few days old. Since then, she comes to the hospital each week for follow-ups. Without her orthodontic appliance, she wouldn’t have been able to eat properly.

 

"During the first six months of life, the cartilage of the nose is very malleable, so during this period, we are really able to mould things into place," says Dr. Broula Jamal, orthodontist.

 

Research estimates that one child in 700 is born with an oral-facial cleft, and one in three couples will learn about it through an ultrasound. Typically, newborns of Asian or Native American descent tend to be most frequently affected.