down syndrome

[Anonymous]

If a baby is found to have a cleft palate before it is born is
it more likely to have down syndrome?

[Susan]

The birth defects you are talking about are two diffrent birth
defects. One has nothing to do with the other. I was told my
second son was going to be born with a cleft lip. The risk of a
down syndrome child has nothing to do with clefts.

[Calvero]

I haven't ever heard of anyone born with both. If someone is,
it's by coincidence only. Cleft has no immediate affect on how
smart the child is either, though some of us have been
mis-labeled as mentally retarded.



Calvero Bron to be Cleft <a
href="http://members.tripod.com/~Calvero/cleft"><a
href="http://members.tripod.com/~Calvero/cleft%3c/a%3e">http://members.tripod.com/~Calvero/cleft</a></a>

[Anonymous]

I am uncertain about how accurate the information I've heard
is, and I have never heard of any statistics supporting or
negating this:



The instance of people with downs syndrome having clefts is
higher than others, but the reverse is not true--that the
population of persons with clefts has a higher instance of downs
syndrome.

[Anonymous]

My cousin has a child with down syndrome and was told that
these children do have a higher incidence of clefts but that
doesn't mean that a cleft indicates down syndrome.