Early postoperative complications in primary cleft lip and palate surgery

We studied the occurrence of early complications of cleft lip and palate surgery by the retrospective study of 132 consecutive cases (160 procedures) operated between three and six months of age. Three children presented with major complications within the immediate postoperative period. All were treated successfully. A local complication directly related to the operation occurred in 7.5% of the cases within the first six postoperative days. In 17%, a general complication not directly related to the operation was observed. The majority of these general complications were cross infections during the hospital stay. These observations led us to reduce the hospital stay to one day for cleft lip and five days for cleft palate and cleft lip and palate operations without compromise to safety but with a reduction of the morbidity and hence the treatment costs and of the child-family disturbance.