Why babies should have hearing screening after birth

  Hearing impairment, commonly known as deafness, is one of the most common congenital disorders, with an incidence of about 1-3 per 1,000, which is very high. Infants with normal hearing, hearing a louder sound in a quiet environment will send out a startle reflex action, which is a momentary shaking of the body limbs or a change in expression. At 3-4 months of age, they are very interested in sound and will look for the direction of sound. This is an important stage of language development.  If the child cannot hear the language stimulus due to deafness, he or she will not be able to enter the speech stage before 11 months of age, and will not be able to learn language during the critical 2-3 years of age, resulting in deafness, which is what the saying “nine out of ten deaf people are dumb” means. If we can detect, diagnose and intervene early after birth, that is, the three early principles, we can let the child hear normal sounds and truly achieve “ten deaf but nine not dumb”. Therefore, hearing screening after birth can detect deafness at an early stage and rehabilitate the child at an early stage, so that the child can develop normally in terms of language and intelligence and can enter normal kindergarten.