Cranio-Facial Disorder Awareness: AmeriFace.Org · New Jersey Member Ogranizations · Donate
Source: Centers For Disease Control
July is National Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month—an observance by individuals and organizations to help make people more aware of and give them information about cleft and craniofacial defects and other conditions that can affect the head and face. Throughout the year, the National Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month and its partner organizations maintain a variety of programs that promote public awareness and offer support and education services for patients and families. Craniofacial defects ― such as orofacial clefts, craniosynostosis, and defects of the ear.
Each year, about 4,400 infants in the United States are born with a cleft lip with or without a cleft palate and about 2,700 infants are born with a cleft palate alone.
About 4 infants per 10,000 live-births in the metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, area are born with craniosynostosis.
Recent studies have found that direct medical and health care use and average costs per child were a lot higher for children with orofacial clefts than for children of the same age without these conditions.
Risk factors for craniofacial defects:
Diabetes: Women who have diabetes before they get pregnant have been shown to be more at risk of having a baby with anotia or microtia or a cleft lip with or without cleft palate.
Smoking: Women who smoke anytime during the month before they get pregnant through the end of the third month of pregnancy have been shown to be more likely to have a baby with a cleft lip with or without cleft palate.
Maternal thyroid disease: Women with thyroid disease or who are treated for thyroid disease while they are pregnant have been shown to be at higher risk of having an infant with craniosynostosis.
Certain medications: Women who report using clomiphene citrate (a fertility medication) just before or early in pregnancy have been shown to be more likely to have a baby with craniosynostosis.