How frequently do cleft lips and cleft palates occur?

Depends: For reasons we don't understand, incidence is dependent on race. The incidence is around 1:500 for asians, 1:1000 for caucasians, slightly higher (1:1300) for hispanics, and 1:2000 for african-americans.

Frequently: Cleft lip and/or cleft palate is the most common birth defect, about 1/600 live births. Some are isolated and some are associated with syndromes, so genetic testing is warranted. A cleft palate team may consist of an ENT doctor, speech/language pathologist, feeding specialist, geneticist, developmental pediatrician, plastic surgeon, dentist and medical social worker.

It depends: On your ethnic background. They occur more frequently i'm people of asian or native american descent as compared to caucasians and africans.

It depends on a lot.: Cleft lip and palate can be as high as 50% (one in two children) for people with certain genetic make up, or much lower. Caucasians have about a 1 in 1000 risk of cleft lip and or palate, Africans about 1 in 1200, some Asians as high as 1 in 300.