CORNER BROOK There’s no doubt that baby Lily LeCoure’s has no trouble hearing.
At just under 24 hours old she showed signs of reacting to the voices and sounds of a camera and flash going off around her.
Her parents, Nicole Bullen and Guy LeCoure of Lourdes, are confident Lily’s hearing is just fine, but they were still interested in finding out how she would do on a hearing test.
Before Lily and her mom are released from Western Memorial Regional Hospital she’ll have her hearing checked under the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program.
“I know she can hear,” said Bullen. “She gets startled and stuff.”
But still the new mom said it will be nice to know “for sure.”
If any problems are identified, Bullen said they will be able to “work with it now, sooner than later.”
Identifying hearing problems that could later impact a child’s speech and language development is what the program, a joint initiative of the maternal newborn unit and the audiology department of Western Health, is all about.
“As hard as it is for anyone to find out that their child has a hearing loss ... the sooner it is identified, the sooner intervention can begin,” said Christine Simms, regional clinical leader for audiology with Western Health.
Since its implementation on Jan. 1 about a dozen infants have undergone the screening which has to be completed between 24 and 48 hours following a baby’s birth.
Simms said the ideal testing time is closer to 48 hours and the actual timing of the test may depend on when the mom and baby are discharged.
She said every baby born at the hospital will be tested and notes there are safeguards in place to catch any infants who might be missed.
Public health nurses will be informed whether the babies referred to them have been tested and if not will refer them back to the audiology department and Simms said the audiology department will also be checking on the number of babies born each month to ensure the testing has been completed.
By promoting the program through pamphlets and posters on the maternal newborn unit, in obstetricians offices and through prenatal classes Simms is hoping the public will know about the program.
“So if they don’t get it done, they’re going to start asking about it.”
Nurses on the maternal newborn unit have been trained to conduct the initial test which Simms said is looking for response from the hearing organ. Any necessary followup after discharge will be conducted by the audiology department.
“There’s an earphone that we put in the ear that will have the infant listening to some sounds. If the hearing organ is functioning fine it emits another sound in response to those.
“It’s almost like an echo,” said Simms. “If it’s present it suggests the hearing should be adequate for normal speech and language development. If it’s not, it suggests we need to followup, do more tests.”
Simms said six in 1,000 infants will have some form of hearing loss. She said that is potentially the number that they should find with the program.
However, the number of babies that they’ll need to provide followup to will be more than that.
That’s because some babies may have debris in their ear canal at the time of the test, some residual fluid left in the middle ear space that has yet to dry up.
Simms said that could affect the initial test, but when they are retested things are fine.
Babies who pass the initial test and who have no other risk factors do not have to be seen again.
For those who do not do well on the first test, Simms said the audiology department would like to see a re-screen done before discharge. If this is not possible they will try and arrange the re-screen for later.
Babies identified as at risk of hearing trouble will be checked again at nine months so that early intervention can begin.
Simms said severe or profound hearing loss tends to be identified earlier but mild to moderate loss, which can still have an impact on speech and language, tends to be diagnosed later.
She said an infant identified by two months of age and fitted with hearing aids by six months should be able to go through normal speech and language development.
“Research has shown that 50 per cent of children who have hearing loss don’t have any risk factors, so by doing the universal screening we’re going to identify those infants that otherwise wouldn’t have been found till they were probably two and half to three years old.”
Simms said the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program has been standard in a lot of places in the United States and many Canadian provinces for years and is something her department has been advocating for at Western Health for a long time.
“We’re very happy, very excited to see it happen.”
