by mia's mom » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:29 am
Hi there- mia had a bilateral cleft - it was a complete cleft of the hard and soft palates. It was really a huge cleft. when doctors looked in her mouth, all of them, honestly, would be shocked. It was always like a knife in my heart when a doctor would say "wow". My PS used a string through her tongue to prevent her tongue from falling backward and closing off her airway. He said it was just like an ear or tongue piercing. It is just meant to insure that, if her tongue did slip back, we could just pull on the string to get it out. We never had to do that at all thankfully. The string is pretty long and it goes from the tip of her tongue, out of her mouth, and was taped to the side of her chin. it annoyed her very much. they took out the string the next morning about 8 am. It was amazingly easy to do- just clip it at the part that is taped to her chin and pull on it- it looked like it almost fell out, two seconds really. Once the string came out, she drank a little more. Hope this helps. Please feel free to PM me with any questions. Sandy