The patient is a 12-month-old infant girl, who was born with a Veau-I classification cleft palate. This is a complete cleft of the soft palate. It's complete separation of the soft palate musculature. The surgical plan will be a primary palatoplasty using a Furlow double-opposing Z-plasty technique. I prefer to do the primary palate repairs around 12 to 14 months of age, when the patient is big enough and has a large enough mouth to work in, and also demonstrates some spontaneous velar muscle movement on physical examination.
