Abstract
Teeth and dentition play an important part in growth of jaw and face and development of chewing, speech and language in the childhood.
In the growing children with cleft lip a nd palate, presence of cleft undergoes an undesirable influence to the growth of dentition, jaw and face and to make matters worse functional disorders in chewing and speech. To get these normal function, first of all teeth should be kept soundly and the dentition and occlusion should be improved normally.
Children with cleft lip and palate are more susceptible to dental caries than healthy children because of anomalies of their palate and dentition, so oral health management are required to those children to keep teeth soundly.
Oral heal th management for cleft lip and palate children should be started at neonatal period. As it is, to start it at this stage is not so easy, so it should be begun as soon as lip operation is over, or immediately after operation of palate at the latest. Pedodontist should instruct to parents the function of teeth, relation to diet and dental caries and oral hygiene rightly, after that a recall schedule should be developed.
