Sasha was born with cleft palate, a birth defect where the tissues of the mouth or lip don’t form properly when a baby is developing in the womb. Sasha’s prior treatment gave her the ability to eat, but she still had difficulty with speech. Despite the speech deficit that therapy wasn’t able to fix, her previous medical team wouldn’t consider further evaluation until she was 5 years old. Sasha’s parents Gina and Greg were concerned Sasha would start kindergarten with speech problems and possibly surgery. So, they scoured the country for a cleft palate team that could help, and found Nationwide Children’s Hospital to be the perfect fit.

Under Dr. Richard E. Kirschner’s direction, the Cleft Lip and Palate Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital offers comprehensive care from a multidisciplinary team of nationally recognized clinicians who fulfill these needs.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, as a patient, and as a physician. Nationwide Children’s is different than anywhere else I’ve been. They care about your time and you have their full attention. It’s not one or two people that particularly stand out – it’s everyone. It’s the hospital’s culture,” says Gina. Today, Sasha is thriving. She loves animals, particularly kittens and baby hamsters. She enjoys art, learning about science and playing soccer.

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• Name: Sasha B.Sasha Berman
• Condition(s): Cleft Palate
• Age at Treatment: birth
• Age Today: 06/15/201013 Years

Sasha was born with cleft palate, a birth defect where the tissues of the mouth or lip don’t form properly when a baby is developing in the womb. Sasha’s prior treatment gave her the ability to eat, but she still had difficulty with speech. Despite the speech deficit that therapy wasn’t able to fix, her previous medical team wouldn’t consider further evaluation until she was 5 years old. Sasha’s parents Gina and Greg were concerned Sasha would start kindergarten with speech problems and possibly surgery. So, they scoured the country for a cleft palate team that could help, and found Nationwide Children’s Hospital to be the perfect fit.

Under Dr. Richard E. Kirschner’s direction, the Cleft Lip and Palate Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital offers comprehensive care from a multidisciplinary team of nationally recognized clinicians who fulfill these needs.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, as a patient, and as a physician. Nationwide Children’s is different than anywhere else I’ve been. They care about your time and you have their full attention. It’s not one or two people that particularly stand out – it’s everyone. It’s the hospital’s culture,” says Gina. Today, Sasha is thriving. She loves animals, particularly kittens and baby hamsters. She enjoys art, learning about science and playing soccer.