Alumna Restores Hope

Alumna Restores Hope To Children and Families with Cleft Birth Defects

By Rachel Forrester

A top choice for students today, ENMU’s Communicative Disorders Master’s Program offers low tuition, a hybrid of online and on-campus classes, and 100 percent employment for graduates. Danielle St. Amand (MS 13) completed the program in 2013 and currently works at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Hospital in Albuquerque as a speech language pathologist focusing on patients with cleft palate and/or cleft lip. She returned to campus this past November with UNM’s Cleft and Craniofacial Team to present their knowledge and techniques to current students in the CDIS program.

“ENMU does a great job,” Danielle said. “They offer a craniofacial anomalies course which makes the program unique. Other places tend to blend that topic into another major course.”

Cleft palate and cleft lip, both craniofacial abnormalities, are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth does not form properly during pregnancy. Danielle works to assess, diagnose, educate, and treat children and individuals up to 21 years of age with many types of cleft lips/palates and all related problems. She is passionate about her work and first realized her calling while treating one of her patients at ENMU’s Speech and Hearing Clinic who had acraniofacial disorder.

Danielle St. Amand holds a see-scape, a tool used to help patients who have a cleft lip and palate with articulation.

“That patient really sparked my passion,” Danielle said. “It’s part of why I stayed in New Mexico and didn’t return to New Hampshire.” Cleft lip and/or cleft palates occur in approximately one to two of every1,000 births in New Mexico. Danielle and her team see patients daily to help with feeding, swallowing and articulation. They also provide long-term care and do about 10 outreach clinics per year for patients who live in rural areas.

Although clefts can be treated with corrective surgeries, speech therapy and other interventions, many children face social and emotional challenges due to the differences in appearance andstress of intense medical care. In addition to improving speech and quality of life, for her youngest patients Danielle’s maingoal is to ensure that their cleft isn’t preventing them from maintaining adequate weight and nutrition.

Although ongoing treatment and support is available to families, there is still a need for greater social awareness of cleft lip and cleft palate so that no child or parent is ever ostracized or isolated. “It’s not just a childhood pediatric disorder, it’s lifelong,” Danielle explained.