Pregnant?: Be Sure to Get Your Baby's Hearing Tested!

When you're preparing to deliver, one of the many forms you may be asked to sign is for the newborn hearing screening. As a newborn hearing screener myself, I strongly encourage you to sign the form. In some states it may be mandatory, but even if it isn't it's always a good idea. If your hospital doesn't offer it, consider making an appointment with an audiologist. I'll explain how the test works and why it's so important.

What is the test and how does it work?

The normal test done on newborns is otoacoustic emission. The babies are too young to know how to raise their right or left hand when they hear a beep, so we use a physiological test instead. OAE, as its called, is done by inserting a small probe into the baby's ear.

It emits a soft clicking/buzzing sound (they make us listen to it, so we understand). The machine then measures the inner ear's response and whether it responds on all levels. It's all in the echos.

The test doesn't hurt and barely causes discomfort. We keep the decibel levels low enough not to disturb them. Some babies are startled by having the soft probes placed in their outer ear. But over a third of the babies I've tested have actually slept through part of the test, even if they fussed at first. In fact, more seem upset about being turned over so that I can test their other ear.

An OAE test can take from under a minute to 5 or 6 minutes per ear, depending on the amount of noise in the room and other factors--such as the amount of wax or birthing debris in the baby's ear and the ear's sensitivity.

Why is the test important?

While as parents you hope for the best, it's possible that your baby may be fully deaf or have a partial hearing loss. If so, it's important to catch this as soon as possible.

A child whose hearing loss goes unnoticed may become developmentally delayed, simply because they had a harder time understanding what's going on around them. If your baby turns out to be deaf or hearing-impaired, there are a number of options you can look into, depending on the cause.