A cleft is treatable — and care is a sequence, not one operation.
Cleft lip and palate care at Chongqing West District Hospital brings feeding support, lip and palate repair, hearing and speech care, alveolar bone grafting, dental and orthodontic treatment, and adult assessment into one planned sequence, supported by the full resources of a tertiary general hospital.
Function and speech first, staged planning from birth through adulthood, and honest expectations at every step.
- Multidisciplinary team care
- Staged planning from birth to adulthood
- Honest risk and benefit discussions
- Tertiary-hospital safety net
Care that starts with the whole child, not one operation
A cleft touches feeding, hearing, speech, the growth of the face and the arrangement of the teeth. Every pathway we plan follows the same three principles.
Assess & plan the sequence
Structured assessment of the cleft, feeding, hearing, speech, teeth and growth — and an honest statement of what each stage can and cannot achieve. Care is planned as a sequence across years, not a single operation.
Treat at the right time
Each operation has a window. Lip repair, palate repair and bone grafting are timed to growth and to the development of speech and the adult teeth, with hospital-grade anesthesia and intensive-care backup behind every procedure.
Follow through the years
Speech therapy, hearing testing, dental and orthodontic care and revision surgery continue long after the first repair. We stay with a child through that whole arc, and we are honest when the answer is to wait.
A multidisciplinary team within a tertiary hospital
The cleft service draws on the leadership of the Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center, working alongside cleft nursing, speech and language therapy, audiology and ear, nose and throat care, paediatric dentistry and orthodontics.
Shaoliang Wang, MD (王韶亮)
Cleft Lip & Palate Care · Center Director
Center Director and lead physician of this site’s cleft care content; reconstructive and craniofacial surgery with more than two decades of tertiary-hospital experience, and a member of the Craniofacial Surgery Group of the Chinese Medical Association Plastic Surgery Branch.
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Tongchun Mao, MD (毛彤春)
Aesthetic Surgery · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of aesthetic surgery; the refinement side of cleft revision, where lip and nasal shape are adjusted once growth is complete.
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Ke He, MD (何锞)
Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of skin and laser aesthetics; scar care and skin quality around repaired lip and nasal tissue, before and after revision surgery.
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Yongbo Jia, MD (贾勇波)
Dermatology · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of dermatology; skin assessment and dermatologic care for children and adults whose skin has been operated on or grafted.
View profile →Cleft care, explained honestly
Start with the basics: what a cleft is, who is involved and when, what each operation can and cannot achieve, and the feeding, hearing, speech, dental and adult questions families actually ask.
Cleft Lip and Palate Explained
What a cleft lip and a cleft palate actually are, how they form in early pregnancy, what is known about causes — and the plain reassurance that nothing the parents did caused this.
Read the guide →The Cleft Team and the Sequence of Care
Who is involved in cleft care — surgeons, nurses, speech therapists, audiologists, dentists and orthodontists — and roughly when each step of the sequence happens.
Read the guide →Cleft Lip Repair: Timing and What the First Operation Achieves
How cleft lip repair is planned and performed, when it is usually done, what the first operation can and cannot achieve, and what recovery and the scar are really like.
Read the guide →Cleft Palate Repair: Balancing Speech, Feeding and Airway
When cleft palate repair is performed, how the operation restores the seal between mouth and nose, and the real balance between speech, feeding and airway that every team has to weigh.
Read the guide →Feeding a Baby With a Cleft: Before and After Repair
Why a cleft makes feeding harder, the specialist feeding bottles and techniques that help before and after repair, and the signs that a baby is feeding well and gaining weight.
Read the guide →Hearing and Ear Problems in Cleft Palate
Why fluid builds up in the middle ear when the palate is cleft, why that threatens hearing and speech, and why regular hearing testing and ear review matter so much.
Read the guide →We will not sell you certainty we do not have
No surgeon can promise a scar-free lip, perfect speech, or that one operation will solve everything. Anyone who does is not giving you honest medical advice. Cleft care is a sequence spanning years, and the goal is function, speech and an ordinary life — not perfection. Our job is to help you make well-informed decisions at each step, even when the right decision is to wait.
Ready to talk about your child’s cleft care?
Reach out for an assessment. We will look at feeding, hearing, speech, teeth and growth together, explain what each stage can and cannot achieve, and plan the sequence with you.
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