Cavan General Hospital starts hearing screening for all newborn babies

Parents of all babies born at Cavan General Hospital are now being offered the opportunity to have their baby's hearing tested prior to being discharged from hospital. This new service has been introduced as part of a national newborn hearing screening programme being rolled out by the HSE in maternity units and maternity hospitals across Ireland. One to two babies in every 1,000 born in Ireland are born with a hearing loss in one or both ears and most are born into families with no history of hearing loss so it is important to screen all babies as early as possible. If these children are not identified early, they are at risk of delayed speech development and communication skills, possibly impacting on their educational achievements and ability to integrate socially. The hearing test which is free-of-charge for all babies will be carried out by a trained hearing screener, while the baby is settled or sleeping. The screener uses two non-invasive tests to screen the newborns' hearing with neither test causing any discomfort to the baby. A small number of babies may need to be referred to a HSE Audiology Clinic for a full hearing assessment. The referral does not necessarily mean that a baby will have a hearing loss, it could be due to a number of factors, including the baby may have been too unsettled at the time of the screening test or the baby may have fluid or a temporary blockage in the ears, after the birth. Welcoming the introduction of this new service Dr Nick van der Spek, Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in Community Child Health, Cavan Monaghan Hospital Group said "This new screening enables us to identify those babies with hearing loss in time to provide effective early treatment. The hearing screening service took a lot of organising by a large number of professionals and has resulted in a service of the highest standard. I would like to thank our local implementation team for their hard work." The HSE commenced the introduction of the newborn hearing screening programme in April 2011.