The simple answer to yesterday’s question is 3.

The elaborated and more accurate answer is not that simple though.

The cleft anomaly can range from a single one sided incomplete cleft lip – to a wide bilateral cleft lip and complete palate.
For a simple lip, one side, one surgery should be enough, if done right.

In the most common lip and palate case, one surgery for the lip, one for the palate and, as a teenager, a rhinoplasty (nose reshaping).

Usually for an extreme case, a lip revision will be necessary, bone graft for the alveolar ridge where the teeth come out, and possibly some palate procedure if speech is not good. Not to mention correction of problems, such as palate fistulas. So for the extreme case of complete lip and palate, 5 surgeries would be common .
And in-between these extremes, 2-3 surgeries would be frequent.

We hope you learned something new today 🙂