Prenatal Consultation Outcomes for Infants With Cleft Lip With and Without Cleft Palate.

Abstract

To assess the clinical impacts of prenatal consultation with a multidisciplinary cleft team on infants with cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL ± P). Retrospective cases series. Tertiary pediatric hospital. Infants with CL ± P whose mothers received prenatal consultation with a pediatric otolaryngology team from June 2005 to December 2019 were identified. A random sample of infants with CL ± P without prenatal consultation from June 2005 to December 2019 was also identified. The primary outcomes were the length of hospitalization during the first 12 weeks of life, timing of surgical repair, length of postsurgical hospitalization, and number of unplanned clinic visits and phone calls for feeding evaluation. Time to cleft lip repair differed significantly between the 2 groups with repair performed at 13.4 (±0.9) weeks for the prenatal consultation group (n = 73) and 15.3 (±2.1) weeks for the control group (n = 80), ( P < .05). If hospitalization was required for feeding difficulties during the first 12 weeks of life, length of stay was 4.9 (± 1.7) days for infants with prenatal consultation and 11.5 (± 7.2) days for control infants ( P < .05). Unplanned clinic visits with a speech-language pathologist (SLP) for feeding difficulties were needed for 2.7% of prenatal consultation infants and 11.3% of control infants ( P < .05). Prenatal consultation regarding CL ± P resulted in infants with decreased duration of early hospitalizations, earlier cleft lip repair, and decreased engagement with the SLP feeding clinic for feeding difficulties when compared with infants without prenatal consultation.