If you are a parent of a child with cleft lip and palate, you know better than anybody else how special your son or daughter is. As all of us, you want the best for your child. Your child is special, a little different from others, because of a cleft, but maybe better than others in some skills, arts, music, sports.
When a child is born with a cleft, a multidisciplinary treatment, including a surgical repair is essential for correcting what this birth defect involves. The treatment may take many years, but the majority of children affected with a cleft are having normal childhood, are able to overcome hardships and become successful adults. Then, questions arise whether their children – or in the case of a parent having a child with a cleft – whether the next child – will have a cleft as well.
But there is a way how cleft lip and palate could be prevented.
Our foundation was born from the need to use the knowledge about causes of cleft lip and palate for a prevention approach. Prevention has an important place in all aspects of our daily life. In everything that is related to our health, it is crucial. Implementing prevention of our health issues is mostly our own responsibility.
Here, we are coming up with this website. We would like to share with you our present knowledge about orofacial clefts, how they develop, their possible causes, and how they can be prevented based on scientific research done by us and others.
Knowledge of principles and mechanisms gives us the power to better prepare for different situations in life, make informed choices, and be in better control of our life. Consider this example: If you were to take a car driving test or drive your car responsibly – first, you would learn general rules of driving, learn what may lead to an accident and how to avoid it, and then, you would apply your knowledge when sitting behind a steering wheel. You would get prepared, because you wanted to transport yourself in a car while preventing possible accidents and injuries.
The prevention of cleft lip and palate is basically similar. You need to know what can happen “if…”, in order to prevent it.
There are three fundamental and basic requirements for healthy prenatal development of a baby:
And, especially, if you have in your family a close or distant relative with a cleft, there are several important steps you should consider in order to prevent cleft lip and palate in your future child:
You can find more in the brochure “Can we prevent cleft lip and palate?” and in the sections “Learn” and the “Questions & Answers” on this website. You can also contact us.
Our aim is to provide you with necessary information, share our knowledge and experience – whether you are an adolescent girl, mother, grandmother or just interested in this issue. To give you a chance to prevent cleft lip and palate in your child by healthy lifestyle and healthy nutrition or helping and supporting others who may be at risk of having a child with a cleft.
