Clinic at Stollery turning babies’ cleft lips and palates into picture-perfect smiles

EDMONTON – Each year, about 50 babies in northern Alberta are born with a cleft lip or palate, which is caused by incomplete development in the womb.

No one knows what causes the opening; only about 30 per cent of cases have a family history of the condition.

While cleft palates sometimes take longer to detect, cleft lips can often be spotted in utero. Carmen Moore was told after her 20-week ultrasound that her unborn child had the latter.

“It was a shocker,” Moore admits.

Her biggest worry was how her baby would be able to eat.

“The feeding is usually the biggest issue right off the bat because the children can swallow properly but they can’t suck,” explains Dr. Gordon Wilkes, one of the two surgeons on the Cleft Lip & Palate team at the Edmonton Stollery Children’s Hospital.

Aside from appearance, other functional issues that may arise could include difficulties with swallowing, speech, and even hearing.

But thanks to the specialized clinic at the Stollery – which also includes a speech pathologist, ear nose and throat specialist, as well as an orthodontist – you likely wouldn’t know Moore’s daughter, Aaralyn, ever had a cleft lip.

She underwent surgery to reshape her lip about three months after she was born. Now other than a little notch in her gumline, there’s barely a trace of the procedure.

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Her doctor says that treatment has come a long way over the past few decades.

Before, he explains that “basically, the repairs were just sort of a geometry exercise to make the skin fit together.

“But because the underlying structures weren’t put in a normal position, it never looked or worked correctly.”

In the late 70s and early 80s, though, he says surgeons began having a better understanding of the muscle. He believes that made a big difference to the aesthetic result of cleft lip repairs.

Only about half of patients need follow-up surgery when they’re older. Doctors will decide whether Aaralyn will need it after all her adult teeth have grown in.

For now, though, she’s a healthy and happy toddler – something her parents are grateful to the clinic for.

“Dr. Wilkes did an awesome job…I think she looks great, but I’m a little biased,” her mom says with a laugh, “so I think she’s the most beautiful baby in the world.”

With files from Su-Ling Goh, Global News