Causes of feeding difficulties in children with cleft lip and palate: 1. Due to the cleft palate, which causes the mouth and nose to be connected, negative pressure cannot be formed in the mouth, resulting in inability to suck or nostril overflow.
2. Due to the change in the distribution and attachment of the muscles of the lip and palate, the tongue retracts, etc., and cannot effectively wrap the pacifier during sucking.
3.The shortening or inability to lift the soft palate leads to imperfect function of the soft palate and affects sucking and swallowing.
Effective feeding methods: 1. Correct position: adopt a face-to-face, 30°~45° prone feeding position to facilitate observation of the child and avoid choking and coughing.
2. Use a latex teat with a cross opening or some special teats to ensure that the milk comes out smoothly and the flow is moderate when the child is sucking.
3.When feeding, the mother can gently squeeze the upper part of the bottle to assist the child in sucking.
4.Pacifiers should be placed close to the non-cleft corner of the mouth to avoid trauma to the local mucous membrane resulting in mucosal erosion.
5. It is best to use small spoon feeding for children with severe cleft palate, and the small spoon should be attached to the corner of the mouth and fed slowly.
Post-operative feeding: 1. Post-operative fluid feeding is required.
2.Sucking pacifier after surgery may increase the local tension of the wound and affect the wound healing, so it is recommended to use spoon for feeding.
3.The feeding spoon should be small and shallow, the food should not be too hot, and avoid eating in the flat position.
4.After each feeding, the food residue on the wound surface should be gently cleaned off with cotton swabs and saline, and ointment should be applied to keep the wound clean and conducive to wound healing.