Stanford Orthodontic Airway Plate Treatment Program

When your child is born with breathing difficulty and/or oral feeding difficulty related to small jaw, tongue position, or cleft palate such as in Pierre Robin sequence, you may hear that there is only one treatment option: jaw elongation surgery, also called mandibular (lower jaw) distraction osteogenesis. While jaw surgery can be an effective treatment, we offer you and your child a nonsurgical alternative: the Stanford orthodontic airway plate (OAP). The Stanford OAP Treatment Program is the first of its kind in the United States.

Highlights

• A novel treatment born from innovation. Through research and years of clinical experience treating newborns with congenital facial deformities, our craniofacial airway orthodontist—HyeRan Choo, DDS, DMD, MS—invented a groundbreaking method of creating the OAP with high precision and safety, utilizing medical imaging analyses. The treatment using Stanford OAP resolves breathing difficulty caused by abnormal tongue position from the very first moment when the OAP is inserted in your baby’s mouth. This is simple and often as effective as jaw surgery. Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford is the first hospital in the United States to offer the OAP.
• Multispecialty evaluation and treatment. When you receive care from us, you receive care from the Stanford OAP team members and also from Stanford Medicine Children’s Health experts in Neonatology; Pediatric Otolaryngology (ENT); Gastroenterology; Pulmonary, Asthma & Sleep Medicine; Cardiology; Neurology; Genetics; Pediatric Plastic Surgery; and specially trained nurses. This multispecialty care often results in better, more nuanced care for your baby.
• High chance of success, even for severe cases of small jaw. Since Stanford Medicine Children’s Health launched the OAP Treatment Program in 2020, we have successfully treated more than 50 babies from all around the United States, as of August 2025.