General body growth in children with cleft palate and related disorders: age differences.

Clefts of the lip and palate, separately or in combination, are among the most frequent congenital defects seen today. Their etiology is heterogeneous and may include hormonal factors, which suggest the possibility of growth effects. Whether affected children are smaller than others has not been determined. We recently showed that growth status is associated with type of cleft. We hypothesized genetic alterations in metabolic pathways that alter prenatal growth, producing clefts; some of these alterations also alter postnatal growth. Since the levels of growth-regulating hormones change during ontogeny, we expected age differences in the degree of growth deficit seen. To test this hypothesis, we examine here the cross-sectional means and distributions of standard deviation (z) scores for height and body mass indices (BMIs) for 144 children with the diagnoses unilateral cleft lip and palate (uCLP) and isolated cleft palate (iCP). We find that alteration in growth status is associated with age group as well as sex and diagnosis.