During the surgery to repair your child’s cleft lip, the surgeon will spend a large amount of time precisely aligning the structures of the lip and base of the nose.
A palatoplasty (PAL-at-oh-plast-ee) is a procedure to repair your child’s palate that is usually performed around 12 months of age. The cleft is closed down the middle in layers.
An alveolar bone graft is usually performed at 8-10 years of age prior to the eruption of the permanent canine tooth. The first part of the surgery is harvesting the bone, usually from the hip.
