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Welcome to
The BLOOM Study
UNDERSTANDING GROWTH IN CHILDREN WITH A CLEFT
Growth in Infants with Cleft
Babies born with a cleft lip and/or cleft palate often face feeding difficulties, which can make weight gain challenging. In the U.S., these infants are up to 12 times more likely to be underweight than babies without a cleft. Being underweight increases the risk of infections, can delay necessary surgeries, and can feel stressful for families. Our work aims to understand the underlying reasons for slow growth in these babies and how their growth affects their overall health. Ultimately, we hope to improve outcomes for these children and find better ways to support their caregivers.
Aim 1
We will use existing data from 10 hospitals in the USA to:
Try to predict which newborns born with a cleft will develop undernutrition.
See how undernutrition affects surgical results.
Aim 2
We will conduct interviews with caregivers of infants born with a cleft to answer questions so that we can learn how feeding relates to:
-Healthcare coordination
-Caregiver psychosocial experiences
-Stress and quality of life
-Infant infections
Aim 3
We will use this new information from caregiver interviews to improve our ability to predict which infants develop undernutrition.
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