Objective To explore the better clinical effect of health education for families of children with cleft lip and palate in preopetative period. Methods Two hundred and two families of children with cleft lip and palate were randomly divided into 2 groups: Experimental group and the control group. Control group were treated by conventional health education, experimental group using improved health education. The cognitive effects of families of children were evaluated after accepting two methods of health education. Results The difference between the two sets of health education methods in families of children was statistically significant on the cognition to the disease and child care(P