Cleft-Craniofacial Center

Comprehensive Care for Children

The Cleft-Craniofacial Center is an example of what we do best: a comprehensive, team-oriented approach to care that allows patients to be treated locally by experts of the highest caliber. Albany Medical Center has the personnel and infrastructure to support patients at our Children’s Hospital and high-level pediatric and neonatal ICUs. It is the only center of its kind in northeastern New York.

At the Cleft-Craniofacial Center families receive care for their children with the specialists they need in one place - plastic surgery, dentistry, genetics, neurosurgery, nutrition, orthodontics, ENT, social work, and speech/language pathology. We follow patients from birth to adulthood to address all conditions at the right time.

To make an appointment at Albany Medical Center, call 518-262-2229.

Team Approach

This Center is comprised of a team of physicians and other specialists who treat cleft and craniofacial conditions. Our plastic and reconstructive surgeons include the region’s only fellowship-trained pediatric plastic surgeon, the region’s only fellowship-trained microsurgeons who operate using sutures smaller than a human hair and just barely visible to the naked eye, reconstructive hand surgeons, and more.

Addressing All Health Care Needs

With modern surgical techniques and early treatment, children with cleft lips and palates and other congenital conditions can achieve a normal appearance often with fewer than three or four surgeries during childhood and adolescence. However, along with surgery, the need remains to address related issues including speech and hearing, dental, development, nutritional needs, genetics and more. And, all of these concerns need to be addressed at just the right time in a child’s development to be the most effective.

 

  • Cleft lip
  • Cleft palate
  • Craniosynostosis
  • Endoscopic and open reconstruction techniques
  • Ear reconstruction (malformed ears)
  • Otoplasty
  • Ear molding
  • Facial trauma and reconstruction
  • Orthognathic surgery (jaw surgery)
  • Nasal reconstruction
  • Other craniofacial deformities and anomalies
  • Plagiocephaly
  • Velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD)
  • Alveolar bone grafting
  • Brachial plexus reconstruction
  • Congenital hand anomalies
    • Duplications
    • Polydactyly
    • Syndactyly
  • Congenital nevi
  • Post-burn reconstruction
  • Post-traumatic reconstruction
  • Scar revision
  • Vascular anomalies
    • Vascular tumors
    • Vascular malformations
Stephanie Bray, MD, MS
The Cleft Craniofacial Center provides a valuable service to the families and children in our community.”
Dr. Stephanie BrayDirector of Cleft and Craniofacial Services