An unusual type of sucking habit in a patient with cleft lip and palate.

Digit sucking, a form of non-nutritive sucking, is a habit of concern to specialist in various fields such as psychiatrist, psychologist, pediatricians, pediatric dentists, orthodontist, speech pathologist and plastic surgeon. The habits have harmful unbalanced pressures to be born by the immature highly malleable alveolar ridges. Sucking behaviors have long been recognized to affect occlusion and dental arch characteristics. As early as 1870s, Campbell and Chandler recognized that prolonged finger or thumb sucking habits had deleterious effects on certain occlusal traits including anterior open bite, increased over jet and class II canine and molar relationships. However, little is known about digit sucking habit and its effect in a cleft lip and palate child as there is no literature till now reported on the digit sucking in a cleft lip patient.