****** CLEFT FACTS ******

Below I have listed some Cleft Facts that you might find interesting. Some dispel myths, others are simply facts we should all be aware of.

Fathers, as well as mothers, can pass on genes that cause clefting.

Some clefts are caused by environmental factors, which means it didn't come from Dad or mom.

One child in 33 is born with some sort of birth defect.

One in 700 is born with a cleft-related birth defect.

Most cleft-affected babies are boys, however, it is not uncommon for a girl to be born with a cleft.

If a person (male or female) is born with a cleft, the chances of that person having a child with a cleft, given no other obvious factor, rises to seven in one hundred.

Some clefts are related to identifiable syndromes. Of those, some are autosomal dominant. A person with an autosomal dominant gene has a 50% probability of passing the gene to an offspring.

Many clefts run in families, even though there does not seem to be any identifiable syndrome present.

Clefting seems to be at least in part related to ethnicity, occurring most often among Asians, Latinos and Native Americans (1:500), next most often among persons of European ethnicity (1:700) and least often among persons of African ethnicity (1:1,000).

A cleft condition is determined during the 4th to the 8th week of pregnancy. After that critical period, nothing the mother does can cause a cleft, and nothing a mother does can avoid the cleft. Sometimes it is determined even before the mother is aware that she is pregnant.

Hope those points help - - food for thought, if nothing else. Joanne