Happy baby!
We were matched with Ruthie and of all the conditions we agreed to care for, finding out my daughter has cleft lip and palate was almost exciting because I knew she was going to receive such amazing medical care here, locally. If it’s something you are interested in, I would highly recommend the podcast you can find HERE from the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic.
Cleft babies need special care when feeding. This spoon bottle was helpful for Ruth.
As I mentioned in my last post, Ruth was born with unilateral cleft lip and palate. She had one surgery in China with an amazing surgeon who repaired her lip beautifully.
Ruth in the hospital prior to her lip repair.
Ruth post-surgery in China.
She has had one surgery here in the states to repair her open palate.
Post-palate surgery with mama to snuggle.
Recovery for the palate is longer and more difficult than the lip, but Ruth was her chipper self in less than a week.
Post-op care for the palate surgery is essential. Ruth could not use a fork or eat anything hard or crunchy for three weeks. This is really important so that the stitching inside the roof of her mouth does not tear or come out. If this happens, a fistula (small hole) develops and the surgery needs to be done again. Thankfully, Ruthie had a beautiful recovery and eating soft spaghetti with spoons for three weeks was worth it.
Happy, snuggly sisters.
Ruth is not missing any teeth but she does have one tooth on her cleft side that is very crooked. She also has a very large under bite. Both of those things will eventually be corrected with orthodontics.
At this point we do not think she will need a bone graft because from what we can tell the cleft does not go through her gum line. However, the doctor said sometimes the missing bone is very small and may need done. This would happen after the baby teeth fall out and before permanent teeth grow in, so we’ve got several years ahead of us before this would be happen, if at all.
Ruth does receive regular dental care which is necessary for even one as little as she since cavities are common for cleft kids. Thankfully she got a gold star at her recent dentist appointment and her teeth look good! We’re glad she LOVES to brush her teeth.
Ruthie will definitely need years of speech therapy. We are currently sloughing through the system of IU13 to get speech therapy. Ruth has an evaluation at the end of November where they will determine what services she is able to receive (all we care about is speech but they will test motor skills, cognitive, etc.). After the evaluation we will hopefully get speech therapy rolling, but I imagine it will continue to be a slow process.
We are all eager for her speech to be more clear. She is a darling girl, full of love and energy. But she can be quite unhappy and throws some really big fits when we can’t figure out what she is saying or what she wants. For now, we use a combination of American Sign Language, pointing/nodding, and the words we (but not everyone) can understand that she says. Sometimes we will look up a sign for a word that took us an especially long time to figure out that she was trying to say.
Ruth is really clever, and so much fun to have as a daughter. Right now we believe we are done with cleft-related surgeries for the rest of her life (unless she would need a touch up on her lip/nose as a teenager).
For now her needs are just a little extra than most 2-year-olds. Speech therapy and orthodontics are the only cleft-challenges that are in her foreseeable future.
She doesn’t let anything slow her down, she’s too busy trying to catch up with all the things her big sisters are doing. Who knew I would be so grateful to have already parented one strong-willed child? I’ve got her number!
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