Plastic Surgery in Children with Down Syndrome
Children having Down syndrome suffer in distorted facial features. Their face is the most affected area. The main difficulties experienced by these children are Condensed nasal bridge including extra skin at the inside corners of the eyelids and the oblique eye openings rather than being straight. Other problems include Flattened mid facial area and the downturned lower lip and an analytical tongue with an open mouth.
An invention in plastic surgery in 1970 was done by a group of experienced physicians and surgeons who perform these surgeries on these children. This invention helped change their facial characteristics.
Here plastic surgery was classified into two sections. In the first stage the Plastic surgery is executed to decrease the tongue’s size and the inhalation of the mouth. Plastic surgery was also executed to enhance the position of the face which is well recognized as facial reconstruction.
Children having prophetic tongue along with an open mouth are usually asked to undergo this type of plastic surgery. This condition arises due to Down syndrome and very common in the early upbringing age of the children. Children experience a smaller than normal oral cavity. There is a scarcity of muscle pitch of the tongue. There will be a swelling of the portion of the tongue that is situated below the tonsils.
This type of plastic surgery is also recognized as a partial glossectomy in which a mass of a tongue is taken out to make it undersized or small. This surgery helps the children to breathe properly and eat the food by keeping their mouth shut. Their speech simplicity is also enhanced.
Facial reconstruction plastic surgery is done to improve the position of the face. Some of the facial reconstruction surgery procedures include invigorating of the nasal bridge, incomplete resection of the tongue and making the palpebral gaps straighter. This will also use inserting implants in the zygomatic bones, elimination of fat from the neck, rectification of the down-turned lip and eliminating the epicanthal folds. In facial reconstruction parents play an important role in the life of the children. They should decide whether their child suffering from Down syndrome should adopt this plastic surgery or not. At times even after surgery there may not be any improvement.
All the plastic surgeries should be done on children after approval from their parents. The parents should collect all the essential details about the plastic surgeon. This is to be done before allowing their children suffering from Down syndrome to have the plastic surgery.
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Benefits of Plastic Surgeries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.