How do I know if my baby listens? know what hearing screening is
What is neonatal hearing screening?
This test measures the neuroelectric response of the auditory system to a sound stimulus . It allows studying the function of the auditory nerve and guiding the diagnosis in some auditory pathologies . You can also set the approximate hearing threshold.
What are the tests that are performed?
He Colombian Ministry of Health recommends performing neonatal hearing screening tests called Otoacoustic emissions (OAS) either brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) to all healthy, full-term newborns without risk factors in the first month of life.
Otoacoustic emissions (OAS) – These are generated in response to a sound stimulus and can be seen in most normal ears. For registration, it is only necessary to place an earphone in the baby's external auditory canal, according to age and size.
Automated auditory brainstem evoked potentials (AEPBT) : provide information about the integrity of the auditory pathway to the brain. It can be performed in noisy environments, and has a very high specificity.
It is recommended to carry out tests, among twenty days and the third month of life; for babies born after 37 weeks of gestation. According to these results, parents will be given guidelines to consult with their doctor.
If an abnormal result is found in these, it is necessary to continue complementary studies, since hearing loss undiagnosed causes alterations in important areas of development such as the development of the oral language, social integration, Emotional development and cognitive.
The hearing loss It is defined as the condition in which there is a partial or total decrease in the ability to detect certain frequencies and intensities of sound; this may be of congenital or acquired cause.
Half of these babies have no clinical history that allows us to suspect the diagnosis; They are babies born into families with parents and siblings who hear normally, without risk factors at birth and without history of infectious diseases in the first months of life.
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