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Home › Articles › Toddler Health › Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Hearing Difficulty, Loss and Screening

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

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"These babies have been swimming in a pool of amniotic fluid for nine months and their ears are full of water and other cellular stuff they have been floating around with," Dr. Lotke says. "This stuff in the baby's ear can impede the sound getting into the ear and affect one of the tests. It takes a few days usually before the ear canal cleans itself out and is clear enough to offer true test results. Therefore, most of the hearing loss that is found at this time may not be true hearing loss in the child – it is a test problem."

With the controversy surrounding newborn screening, many parents may be at a loss as to how much weight the results they are offered carry.

"With the newborn screening, up to one out of six babies will test positive with some type of hearing loss," says Dr. Lotke. "Doing [a hearing screening] very early leads to about 90 percent of the children who test positive, meaning it looks like these children are going to be deaf or have a hearing loss and they turn out to be hearing. I find it unconscionable to tell a new mom – or actually one out of every five new moms – that their baby may be deaf. Then after retesting we'll go back to Mom and say, 'Sorry, we're wrong.'"

Timing Your Test
So when is the best time to have a child's hearing screened for the first time? As early screening holds a large amount of importance, waiting until a problem is noticeable is not the answer.

"My advice to parents is to ensure that the child is at least tested at their first follow up visit with their pediatrician – usually at 6 weeks," says Dr. Lotke. "However, the big warning I offer is that if they have their baby at a hospital where they do the newborn testing and someone drops a result in your lap that your baby may be deaf, don't panic. Take it serious and get the follow up tests, but don't panic. Don't start treating your child different; don't start feeling guilty; don't start worrying – wait until the second results are in."


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