In Brief:
There's little benefit to parents or baby in learning before birth that a newborn will have a cleft lip/palate, a new study suggests.. Researchers led by Dr. James Robbins, of the Arkansas Center for Birth Defects and Prevention, interviewed 235 mothers of children aged 2 to 7 years with orofacial clefts (cleft lip or cleft lip and palate). However, contrary to expectations, they did not report greater satisfaction with information, support and treatment outcomes than mothers who learned about their child's condition after birth.. Infants born with orofacial clefts have unique feeding requirements and the study did find a significant difference in how the mothers felt about feeding. According to the March of Dimes, about 6,800 babies are born with cleft lip or palate in the United States each year..
