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Cleft lip and palate is due to tissues of the face not properly joining together during development. They are a type of birth defect. The cause in most cases is unknown. Risk factors include smoking during pregnancy, diabetes, an older mother, obesity, and certain medications such as some used to treat seizures.
Several forkhead genes represent good candidates, not only because of their craniofacial expression pattern but also because mutations give rise to clefts, e.g. TTF-2 mutations cause thyroid abnormalities and CP (86), while FOXC2 mutations lead to distichiasis, lymphoedema and cleft palate (87).