Oral health is essential to ensure the successful esthetic and functional rehabilitation of children with cleft lips and palates. The objective of this research work was to explore in greater depth how caries are expressed in patients that have been treated ever since the early days of FOUSP's Prosthetic Maxillofacial OutPatient Clinic. A single researcher examined 285 children between the ages of 6 and 72 months, 116 of which were female and 139 were male. Thirty children with no cleft composed the control group. The remaining 255 comprised the study group, in which the children were classified as: 145 with cleft lip and palate, 36 with cleft lip and 74 with cleft palate. A group of 57 affected patients were submitted to a longitudinal study that included three tests performed at intervals of 12 months. Another group of 30 children with clefts was selected, in which the children's data was matched with those of siblings living in the same home. This group comprised the control group. Visual and tactile clinical examinations were held after dental prophylaxis under artificial light, with a clinical mirror and CPI probes, when necessary. Dental caries were diagnosed by WHO criteria; severity was classified according to the FDI / WHO, and seriousness, according to the American Dental Association. The tabulated data was analyzed statistically using the chi-square test adjusted for the Fisher statistic or the Yates' correction. In the group of 255 children, 35 were affected by dental caries, which accounted for 13.8% of the sample. There was no association between caries prevalence and cleft types (p = 0.587) and between caries prevalence and gender (p = 0.736), but increasing age showed a statistically significant correlation (p = 0.001). In the longitudinal evaluation, 57 children were free of caries at baseline (A1); in the second exam (A2), 44 children remained without decay; in the last evaluation (A3), 35 remained free of caries. The mean dmft in the cross-sectional sample was 0.34; in the longitudinal sample in A2, it was 0.38, and in A3, it was 0.92. In the group of siblings that matched the mean dmft, the occurrence of cleft was 0.4, and, in the control group (their siblings), it was 1.53, with a very low and a moderate severity score, respectively. The seriousness of the caries was assessed in 35 children with dental caries. In 21 children, the upper central incisors were affected, in 5, both maxillary central incisors were affected, and in 9, some other posterior tooth was affected. In the paired group, both subjects with cleft and their siblings had the most affected upper central incisors (p <0.001). It was concluded that patients with cleft lip and palate, followed up from birth, showed a low prevalence of dental caries with very low severity but high seriousness.