Dr. Lalayants explained how parents can notice hearing loss in a child
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March 3 is World Hearing Day. Healthy hearing allows us to communicate freely with others and adapt to society. It is true that it is often possible to appreciate this happiness of hearing only when faced with hearing loss. In medicine, hearing loss is called hearing loss. Maria Lalayants, Candidate of Medical Sciences, otolaryngologist, audiologist of the Department of Otolaryngology of the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital of the Russian National Research Medical University named after NI NI Pirogov of the Ministry of Health of Russia.
Hearing loss or hearing loss is a deterioration in the perception of all or some sounds. If a person does not hear anything or hears a little, but only very loud sounds, literally a scream in the ear, then this is already deafness.
HOW PARENTS CAN SEE A CHILD’S HEARING IMPAIRMENT
You can understand that a child has reduced hearing ability by observing their behavior. If a child is hard of hearing, she may not respond to sounds and speech if she doesn’t see or feel the source of it. In this case, he looks intently at the face, especially the lips. Children with congenital hearing impairment eventually learn to understand others through everyday gestures, facial expressions, lips. Therefore, the violation can remain invisible to others for a long time, and parents often notice the problem due to a delay in the development of speech.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER SO AS NOT TO DECREASE THE HEARING CAPACITY OF CHILDREN
For the normal development of hearing and speech, a stimulating and safe sound and speech environment is important for a child from birth.
HEALTHY
Children growing up in families where parents actively talk to the child and with each other begin to voluntarily repeat sounds and then speak, remember, and use more words than in families where children are not spoken to. To check whether a baby has congenital deafness or hearing loss, it is important to have an audiological examination of newborns (up to three months of age) at the maternity ward or at a local clinic. If necessary, this will allow timely initiation of treatment.
BETTER NOT
The constant noise from highways, railways, construction sites, and other environmental noises from large cities can cause hearing impairment in a child, affect sleep, and affect the functioning of the cardiovascular system. You should not take your child to concerts where the sounds exceed 80 dB (it can be compared to the constant screaming and roaring of a motorcycle). If he can’t hear himself at the concert, and after the performance his ears are still ringing, that kind of leisure is not for the family.
ABSOLUTELY NOT
Cotton swabs to clean children’s ears are prohibited. It is important to clean the ears immediately after bathing, cleaning the outside with the tip of a towel, a cotton pad, a cotton “wick”, but not cotton swabs.
– Cotton swabs are not really for the ears and are not intended for such purposes, – says Dr. Maria Lalayants. – An attempt to clean the external auditory canal for yourself or a child with a swab can lead, first of all, to the introduction of sulfuric masses into the deeper parts of the ear canal with the formation of a sulfuric plug and hearing loss, and secondly, to trauma to the skin of the ear canal or eardrum.
IF A CHILD HAS INJURED THEIR EAR PANUM
Trauma to the tympanic membrane without affecting the middle ear structures can cause mild hearing loss, the doctor said. Such a lesion is dangerous with the risk of infection of the middle ear and the development of purulent otitis media, so the problem should not be ignored.
LISTEN ON YOUR SMARTPHONE
Hearing aids are medical devices that help address hearing loss today. Such devices can be adjusted with a high degree of sensitivity in order to compensate for the perception of precisely those sounds that the child does not hear, and at the volume necessary for him. The machine can be wirelessly connected to a smartphone and individually configured. In the case of bilateral deafness, when hearing aids do not help, but the auditory nerve is spared, cochlear implantation can be used. In this case, the electrode systems are implanted in the inner ear and allow direct stimulation of the auditory nerve fibers with sound waves. Every year, such an operation is performed on thousands of children at the expense of the state.
