Plastic Surgery for Cleft Lip and Palate
The cleft lip can be considered as independent referring to distressing the right or left lip and as bilateral referring to disturbing both sides.
During the cleft lip plastic surgery, small cuts are made and the divided portions of the lip are used jointly to make a particular complete lip.
The recovery process of children takes about 10 to 12 weeks and the propensity of healing varies from one child to other child. Palate and cleft lip plastic surgery is also recognized as cheiloplasty.
When the child grows older and becomes mature, he requires an additional plastic surgery called as a lip revision in order to correct the changes that can occur in the lip with the passage of time.
This type of plastic surgery takes about 12 to 18 months to repair it and is performed by the well qualified plastic surgeon. In Cleft lip and palate plastic surgery, the patients are provided the anesthesia before performing the plastic surgery in various medical centers and in the hospital.
If the cleft lip is unilateral, then only one kind of plastic surgery such as reconstructive surgery is performed for the cleft lip. A cut is made from the lip to the nostril and then both the sides of the cleft lip are sutured jointly.
Two plastic surgeries are needed for the two-sided cleft lips and after the surgery, the patient is allowed to stay in a hospital for several weeks.
Clefts containing the lip and the palate are very essential in performing the plastic surgery as they can influence the speech, facial growth, weight gain, function of the middle ear and the feeding.
Both the themes can be observed at abnormal ages like intricacy in feeding and dysfunction of the middle ear is the newborn and early childhood issues. Experiencing from the speech difficulties is the main problem of the children of 2 years old.
Kinds of Anesthesia
During the cleft lip and palate plastic surgery, the children are given common anesthesia which helps them in sleeping during the whole process. There are various anesthesiologists of the Mott Children’s Hospital and nurse anesthetists who are qualified and expert in providing services to the pediatric patients.
After the Plastic Surgery
After the cleft lip and palate plastic surgery, the child experiences from IV and in order to decrease the inflammation, they are allowed to sleep in a crib. It is advised that the child should stay in a hospital for one or two days. A gel for the sutures can be applied or medicines like Tylenol in addition to codeine can be taken by the children suffering from extreme pain.
Appearance
After the surgery has been completed, the child can notice some redness in addition to swelling on the lips. One can keep small strips of tape on the cuts to maintain the repairing, to decrease the pressure on the suture line and to avoid the lips from rubbing and an unintended hit.