Abstract
New born hearing screening programme at tertiary care hospital from South Karnataka-our experience
Highlights
Congenital, bilateral hearing impairment occurs in approximately 1-5 per 1000 live births and permanent unilateral hearing loss is included, the incidence increases up to 8 per 1000 live births [1-3]
Research suggests that children who are born deaf or acquire hearing loss very early in life and who receive appropriate interventions within six months of age are at par with their hearing peers in terms of language development by the time they are five years old [9]
Without a standard screening programme hearing loss is not detected till 24 months of age when it is identified with language delay
Summary
Congenital, bilateral hearing impairment occurs in approximately 1-5 per 1000 live births and permanent unilateral hearing loss is included, the incidence increases up to 8 per 1000 live births [1-3]. Screening of only high risk neonates can miss upto 50% of babies with hearing loss, a cost effective universal screening programme will be the viable option. Methods: All eligible newborns were screened using two staged Transient Evoked Oto Acoustic Emissions (TEOAE) at birth and at 4-6 weeks of age and confirmatory test by auditory brainstem response (ABR) at 3 months of life. Results: Out of 977 babies, 14 were detected with hearing loss at first follow up at 46 weeks of age Of these 14 babies, were confirmed to have hearing impairment using ABR at 3 months of age. Universal hearing screening is the need of the hour to detect large number of hearing impaired in the magnanimous “no risk” newborn population in our country
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