Parenting comes with its own unique set of challenges. As a mother to an infant, you’ll probably understand this from the first-hand experience. But if you’ve found out your child’s hearing is impaired, you’re likely feeling confused and worried. You want to help your child and make sure they’re receiving the best care and quality of life despite any hearing loss. Take a deep breath, and let these ideas and tips lead you to assist your child. Continue reading to learn more about impaired hearing interventions and other ways to help manage their hearing loss.
Hearing Screenings
As you navigate through this journey as a new parent to a child who has hearing impairments, you have to remember that you’re not alone in the struggle. It’s reported that about 1% of all babies in the United States are born with some type of hearing loss. It’s also worth noting that as your infant grows up, young children and teens can still experience hearing loss too. This statistic is just one of the reasons why you need to perform a pediatric hearing test. This test is a hearing screening that is critical to receiving appropriate treatment for your child as early as possible. As a general rule of thumb, a newborn hearing screening test is performed at the hospital. If something is noticeably wrong, you’ll be made aware of how to move forward, and you’ll most likely have to schedule another pediatric hearing test to better understand how to intervene. This follows up screening is important, because the intervention is ideally made by the time your infant is six months of age. With this short timeframe to work with, it’s even more of a push to consider additional hearing screenings after your baby’s initial test at the hospital.
Expert Medical Assistance
Audiologists and medical professionals say that you need to look for warning signs to gauge if your infant or child might suffer from hearing loss. These warning signs differ depending on the age of your child. For example, the CDC reports that in babies you can look for signs like inability to be startled by loud noises, lack of verbal capability by year one, and inability to turn towards a source of the noise. For children, the warning signs include delayed speech and very high volume on home devices like tablets or TVs. By looking out for these signs first, you can more effectively get your infant or young child the treatment they might need.
If it’s determined that your infant struggles with hearing loss by a medical professional and their screenings, then you’ll want to get the help of a pediatric audiologist. These audiologists specialize in working with young children. They can perform various diagnostic tests and work with you to get your infant as close as possible to normal hearing, with the use of cochlear implants or hearing aids. On top of improving their normal hearing, working with audiologists can manage and avoid developmental delays in their speech as well. With the help of both an audiologist and speech-language pathologist, you can help your child’s language development to minimize these developmental delays.
Ways to Enrich Their Lives and Relieve Stress
While you find your way throughout this new way of life with your child, it’s important to relieve stress and do activities together. Take time to find space outside of managing their hearing. A great activity to work in as a Mother is going for a jog or walk with your little one. You can confidently take your child for a jog or walk in your stroller with this Stroller Buzz Universal Rain Cover. This rain universal rain cover works as an attachment to virtually any stroller. This is an incredibly useful tool during the current pandemic when you want to go out for a stroll with your child, but you also want to keep them protected from various weather conditions, allergens, and illnesses. By incorporating daily walks with your infant, you’ll be a happier, less stressed Mama. This way, you can focus on taking care of yourself and prioritize how to best care for your baby throughout these challenging transitions.
