Rising To The Occassion

a cleft palate.

So can you explain what a cleft palate is? I think a lot of people have kind of heard cleft palate or cleft lip.

Are those the same things? Can you have both of those things? Yes.

Great

question.

So a cleft lip and a cleft palate are different, but they often occur together.

A cleft lip is really an opening in the upper lip and it often goes into the nasal cavity And a cleft palate is more an opening in the palate, which is kind of like in the back of the mouth.

They said Reyna had a dime-sized hole where her uvula is supposed to be.

Whoa.

She doesn't have a uvula.

I don't.

The little hangy ball.

The hangy

ball.

So dime-sized hole in hangy ball.

So instead of hangy ball hole there.

Oh my gosh.

So that's what her cleft palate was.

But yeah, it can involve the soft palate, the hard palate, or both.

And a cleft palate can occur with or without the lip.

And she was not born with a cleft lip, only the palate.

But we soon found out that it can affect feeding, which is most important for babies, of course.

Later on, it can impact, you know, like important immediately.

But it can affect feeding, speech, hearing, dental development, like a lot of coexisting things because of a cleft palate.

So immediately we did start experiencing feeding issues because she could not create like a suction and suck from a breast.