When my child was born: cross-cultural reactions to the birth of a child with cleft lip and/or palate.

Objective: To compare across cultures the maternal reactions toward the birth of children with cleft lip and/or palate.

Design: An adaptation of When My Child Was Born, a Likert-type scale designed to assess reactions to the birth of a child, was used to survey the target populations.

Setting: The surveys were administered between February 2006 and February 2008 at four hospitals: the Faculty of Medicine Hospital, Chiang Mai, Thailand; Sappasitprasong Hospital, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand; the No. 5 Affiliated Hospital to Xinjiang Medical College, Urumqi, China; and Santa Monica Hospital,Pereira, Colombia.

Participants: Thai (n = 22), Chinese (n = 25), Uygur (n = 15), and Colombian (n= 36) biological mothers completed the survey. A historical cohort of American mothers (n = 99) was used for comparison.

Main Outcome Measure(s): The primary study outcome measure was the mean maternal affect score, which was calculated from the individual responses of study participants.

Results: The mean maternal affect scores for the Thai, Chinese, Uygur, and Colombian mothers were 3.68 6 0.38, 2.97 6 0.52, 3.40 6 0.47, and 3.51 6 0.61,respectively. The American cohort score was 3.44 6 0.67. Analysis of variance testing indicated that these groups were not equal (p , .0001). There were statistically significant differences between groups (p , .05).

Conclusions: Maternal reactions to the birth of cleft children are different across cultures. These differences must be considered when administering care on international surgical missions.