Growth impairment of children with different types of lip and palate clefts in the first 2 years of life: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: To analyze the differences in growth impairment according to sex in the 2 first years of life in children with three types of clefts.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 881 children (58.9% boys and 41.1% girls) with cleft lip and palate treated at the Craniofacial Anomaly Rehabilitation Hospital, (University of São Paulo, Bauru, SP), Brazil. Age ranged from 1 to 24 months. Three types of clefts were evaluated: isolated cleft lip (181/20.5%), isolated cleft palate (157/17.8%) and cleft lip + palate (543/61.6%). Weight and length measurements and data regarding breast-feeding and socioeconomic level were obtained. Children with weight and length below the 10th percentile of the NCHS reference were considered to have impaired growth.

Results: Sample distribution according to cleft type and sex was similar to that observed in other epidemiological studies. Breast-feeding was more frequent in the isolated cleft lip group (45.9%) then in the isolated cleft palate (12.1%) or cleft lip + palate group (10.5%). Isolated cleft lip children showed less marked impairment of weight (23.8%) and length (19.3%) compared to the cleft lip + palate group (35.7% and 33.1%, respectively). In the latter group, the proportion of children with weight and length below the 10th percentile was very close to that of the isolated cleft palate group (34.4% and 38.9%).

Conclusions: The impairment in weight and length was more severe in cleft lip + palate and isolated cleft palate children and may be attributed to feeding difficulties compared to the isolated cleft lip group.