Pediatric dental medicine for patients with cleft and craniofacial conditions

Many craniofacial conditions affect the teeth, mouth and jaw, and our dental team is an important part of our program.

Our pediatric dentists provide an evaluation of the health of a child's mouth during multidisciplinary clinic visits. Keeping teeth healthy is especially important for children with craniofacial conditions because teeth support orthodontic equipment (braces) which may be used later in a child’s treatment plan. 

Orthodontists and oral/maxillofacial surgeons (surgeons who specialize in the mouth, jaws and face) evaluate tooth and jaw development and growth as part of our multidisciplinary clinic team evaluation. This assessment is a key part of care for children with craniofacial conditions. It’s important that related surgery or treatment is provided at the proper time to ensure it’s as effective as possible.

When dental or orthodontic treatment is needed, it may be done in our hospital's clinic, by a child's local provider or in consultation with our team.

Conditions we treat: Learn more about your infant's diagnosis

We provide care for a variety of conditions children are born with (congenital conditions) as well as conditions that may occur during a child’s life. These include:

• Cleft lip and palate
• Pierre Robin sequence
• Velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI)
• 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
• Craniosynostosis
• Hemifacial microsomia
• Craniofacial microsomia
• Plagiocephaly
• Torticollis
• Chiari malformation
• Vascular malformations
• Hemangiomas