A Hospital's Ability to Evaluate Auditory Function in Newborns

In United States, Out of every 1,000 babies born, three have some variant of hearing loss, making it the most common birth defect as per the records of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management.

Hearing can be of such different types that it need not necessarily indicate deafness but could be as simple as a very mild feeling of unease. A common remedy for hearing loss in children is a combination of therapy and hearing aids.

In acute cases, doctors are left with no option but cochlear implants. A damaged part of the ear will not sense even the amplified sounds delivered by the hearing aids; but implants bypass the damaged part and send audio signals straight to the auditory nerve. Even after using these devices, do not expect the hearing to return to its original level.

According to doctors, the best option is to screen babies as early after birth as possible. The first few months of a baby?s life can be very critical in developing language skills and hence the chosen therapies need to be started within the first six months.

A new procedure is helping in detecting hearing loss in babies right after birth. Almost normal language development is feasible using modern day procedures if hearing loss is detected within the first six months after birth.

Detection of hearing loss in children usually happens around the age of 22 to 26 months. Quite often, hearing problems do not get detected till they manifest themselves as either speech related issues or language development problems.

By implementing a new procedure, medical teams are now able to detect hearing problems in newborn babies even before they are discharged from hospital.

Otacoustic Emissions are being used increasingly to determine how well a baby is able to hear. A probe is placed in the ear canal and sounds are delivered through it. The cochlea, or inner ear, produces an echo that is picked up by a microphone inside the same probe. What used to take 10 minutes to screen each using a conventional procedure now takes merely 10 seconds.

The Auditory Brainstem Response test is the next step for those babies who do not pass the OAE. The hearing nerve?s responses to sounds delivered by a disposable earphone and the objective of the ABR test is to measure these responses with the help of three painless electrodes placed on the baby?s head and shoulders.

Fifteen minutes is all it takes for each ear.

Doctors make sure that babies are asleep before starting these tests. Around the age of 2 years, speech problems or poor progress on the language development front raises suspicions about hearing problems.

Medical experts would rather screen all babies so that those that need more tests and further treatment can be attended to without delay. This has the potential of making a huge difference in the children?s lives, especially language development which could affect their performance at school.

If babies fail both these tests need to be taken to an audiologist for diagnostic testing. Only 2 percent of all babies tested need to be referred to an audiologist for diagnostic testing.

Amplifications are now available for infants as small as 2 to 3 months old. Normal development of these children is almost certain if they get early help.

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