Do psychosocial variables predict the physical growth of infants with orofacial clefts?

This study sought to determine whether psychosocial variables (parent-infan t feeding interactions, infant temperament, maternal social support, family socioeconomic status) are important in predicting the physical growth of i nfants with orofacial clefts, after controlling for selected medical variab les (infant health status, cleft diagnosis, and previous weight). Infant gr owth (weight-to-height z scores) was tracked for 2 years, and models were d eveloped to predict growth at 3, 12, and 24 months. The authors also examin ed the growth trajectories of infants with different cleft types: cleft lip and palate (CLP) and cleft palate only (CPO). CPO infants showed some incr ease in their growth relative to the population mean over time, whereas the growth of CLP infants remained lower than the population mean at all time points. After controlling for medical variables, psychosocial variables col lectively accounted for an additional 42% of the variance in infants' growt h at 3 months of age, but they did not account for growth at 12 months and 24 months, largely due to the strong effect of previous growth. The authors tentatively conclude that psychosocial variables influence the early growt h-trajectory of infants with clefts, but subsequent growth becomes increasi ngly regulated by biological factors.