Can cleft palate babies breastfeed?

Babies with a cleft of the lip only can usually breastfeed as a newborn. You can use your breast or fingers to block the cleft to help your baby to get proper suction. The soft palate may have a cleft. This is often hard to see, so it may only be found after a few hours or days if your baby seems unable to breastfeed.Click to see full answer. Likewise, people ask, how do you feed a baby with cleft palate? Feeding a Child with a Cleft Lip or Cleft Palate Use a specialized cleft palate bottle as demonstrated by your baby’s medical team. Place your baby in an upright, sitting position to prevent the formula from flowing back into the nose area. Keep the bottle tilted so the nipple is always filled with milk and pointed down away from the cleft. Additionally, how does cleft palate affect swallowing? Babies with clefts may swallow more air than normal during feeding due to their difficulty forming a vacuum seal, especially if the flow of milk is either too slow or too fast. They may show this by having a blue ‘moustache’, being extra sleepy or bringing up some of their feed. Similarly, what is the main reason that infants with cleft palate have difficulty with breastfeeding? Because the roof of the mouth is not formed completely, babies with cleft abnormalities often have trouble creating enough suction to pull milk from a standard bottle or the breast. With proper teaching, support and patience, most babies with cleft palate go on to do very well with feeding.How do you fix a cleft palate? In palate repair surgery, a plastic surgeon will: Close the cleft in layers. Rearrange and repair the muscles of the soft palate so they work better during speech. Make two incisions (cuts) on each side of the palate behind the gums to ease tension on the palate repair.