What is the birth defect in the ad with the kids that look like they

[Th1onein]

have sucked their lips up into their nostril? Not trying to be crude, but I've seen several pictures of children with the exact same birth defect. I was wondering if there was a name for it, and maybe a cause for that particular birth defect. Anyone know?

[TheDebbieDee]

1. It's called a "cleft palette, I think.

[calimary]

6. Yep, that's a cleft palate or cleft lip.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/surgical/cleft_lip_palate.html

Stacy Keach had that. Evidently, so did Joaquin Phoenix.

[CountAllVotes]

2. it is called a cleft palette

and it can be corrected with surgery.

[Speck Tater]

3. Oops. never mind.

On edit: I got it confused with another defect. My bad.

[skooooo]

4. ..

Cleft palate, formally called "hair lip." There's probably a more correct name for it now.

[Sal Minella]

7. Harelip = lip split like a rabbit's

Bilateral cleft palate gives the "lip up the nostrils" appearance. The surgery for correcting this is astonishingly successful in making a child look as though there had been no defect.

[skooooo]

10. ...lol.thanks

I always wondered what "hair" had to do with it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Cleft lip and palate, commonly called "harelip."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleft_lip_and_palate

[kath]

8. Actually, the defect you see externally (of the lip) is called cleft lip.

It is often, but not always, accompanied by a gap/defect in the palate called cleft palate. It is one of, if not the, most common congenital anomalies.
The old term was "hare lip", as in hare like a rabbit, because rabbits have that "pulled back lip" appearance.

THis past Christmastime, I added a charity called Interplast to the list of charities we donate to. They do low cost surgeries for cleft lip/palate and severe burns in third world countries.

[pitohui]

9. yes it is a VERy common birth defect but in usa it's corrected right away

as another poster says, juaquin phoenix had it and a friend of mine had it and has exactly the same surgical scar/upper lip (not real noticeable) as phoenix

it really makes a difference in quality of life if this is corrected when the kid is very young, i thought my friend's was corrected almost immediately after birth (not sure as she is my same age so obviously we weren't forming memories back then at that age!)

[SoCalDem]

19. and it can inhibit speech development if not corrected early

My friend's little boy had his corrected at about a month ..and once he started speaking, he had immediate speech therapy too..by the time he was in school, you would never have noticed a thing different about him..:)

[Blue Diadem]

22. according to wiki, phoenix's actually healed in utero

but the scars still look the same. Isn't that amazing?

[otherlander]

11. I've seen ads trying to raise money to correct it

saying that you could save a child's life... Now, please don't flame me for this, I'm not trying to mock anyone or be sarcastic, I'm just curious... How does having a messed-up lip kill you?

[likesmountains 52]

13. Well, in some societies you are shunned...

[pitohui]

15. please try to use a little common sense

would you be willing to go through life looking like that when there are guns and knives in the world? no you wouldn't and neither would i

depression/suicide kill, that's sort of what suicide means

also if the palate is cleft there are problems with being able to actually eat and keep down food but i don't know details as i live in the usa where this problem is dealt with promptly -- in the third world where surgery is not available i think it leads to problems with eating/swallowing and also being able to speak properly

some things are so easy and cheap to fix that it is cruelty not to, we have the technology, the surgery is trivial, it's a shame that for want of pieces of paper with numbers on it someone should have to live like this for years

[TahitiNut]

16. A cleft palate can make it difficult to suckle at the mother's teat.

In severe cases, it's impossible. Thus, the infant starves.

Wikipedia has a decent entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleft_lip_and_palate

Other ...
http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/surgical/cleft_lip_palate.html
http://www.cleftline.org/

[otherlander]

17. Oh ok

[skooooo]

18. ...the condition doesn't just stop on the outside..

This is a profound developmental problem that can have all kinds of side effects, including not being able to articulate words normally, etc. There can be swallowing issues too, I'm sure.

[skooooo]

12. This question makes me think about ...

...how I remember seeing more birth defects, or medical conditions maybe 35-40 years ago that you no longer see. This is one, but there were others.

Hydrocephalus was one. I don't see anyone with that in public anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus

[likesmountains 52]

14. Probably because this can be diagnosed on an ultrasound before birth...maybe

the pregnancy is not taken to term

[SoCalDem]

20. That is a big reason...

An old doctor once told me that when he was training..waaay back.. when doctors made housecalls, and babies were born at home, when a seriously "damaged" baby was born at home, they would just "let it go"... they would sedate the mother, and the doctor & father would tell her the baby died.. This was in small farm communities where there were no services, and every farm depended on strong healthy children..

[skooooo]

23. Wow...

It's amazing what we are able to take for granted these days, relatively speaking.

[Hekate]

24. An engineer with a hydrocephalic child invented a shunt, a drain that lets the excess fluid flow out

...of the skull to be absorbed elsewhere in the body. It used to be the cause of profound retardation, and now it can be cured.

When I was a young kid you could tell who had had a repaired cleft palate because of a characteristic speech defect and a swollen upper lip. The repair was also asymmetrical. It was quite an innovation not that long ago when surgeons learned how to make the patient's face symmetrical.

Hekate

[anigbrowl]

21. This might be too obvious, but why didn't you just click on one of the ads to find out? .nt

[Th1onein]

26. I don't like clicking on ads.

And who is to say that they would have named it? It was a pretty simple answer, as it turned out, but not having known the answer, how would I know that the ad would give it to me?

[trof]

25. Tom Brokaw had cleft lip.

You can see a tiny scar and he has a very slight speech impediment.

[bean fidhleir]

27. The actor Stacy Keach also has a repaired cleft, and the scar is visible