birth defect Archives - Amazing Health Advances

What Parents Should Know About Newborn Hearing Screenings

The AHA! Team — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 05:09:29 +0000

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles via Newswise – Early detection of hearing loss in children is imperative. Learn what the result of your kid’s hearing test means—and what you need to do about it next. In the United States, approximately 3 out of every 1,000 infants are born with hearing loss. Surprisingly, over 90% of these children are born to parents who themselves have normal hearing. As mandated by state regulations, newborn hearing screenings are performed in all hospitals where babies are delivered. These screenings are essential for early detection, which Kristina Rousso, AuD, an audiologist with the California Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (CA-LEND) training program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, says is crucial for achieving optimal outcomes in a child’s development. Babies’ brains “From birth, babies’ brains are constantly taking in information to support development of listening, language, and reading,” Dr. Rousso says. Dr. Rousso says that she and her colleagues follow the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing Guidelines 1:3:6 model—identification through screening by 1 month of age; diagnosis of hearing level and type with a pediatric audiologist by 3 months of age; and treatment with hearing devices by 6 months of age. What can cause hearing loss at birth? Below are some of the reasons that a baby may be born with hearing loss: Genetic factors Maternal viruses during pregnancy, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and rubella Extended stays in neonatal intensive care, due to risk factors such as low birth weight, lack of oxygen, and phototherapy treatment Two types of newborn hearing screenings There are two primary types of newborn hearing screenings: otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and auditory brainstem response (ABR). “Both are painless, fast, and easy to measure,” Dr. Rousso says. Otoacoustic emissions involves playing different sounds into the baby’s ear to detect a response from the inner ear Auditory brainstem response measures the brain’s response to sounds and volume levels through electrodes placed on the baby’s head during sleep. Hearing screenings provide a “pass” or “refer” result. Here is what each means. Pass: A “pass” indicates your baby likely has normal to near-normal hearing. “However,” Dr. Rousso says, “it’s still important to monitor speech and language development and the baby’s responses to different sounds in the environment.” If your baby does not respond to sounds appropriately at home, or their speech and language development is not advancing, schedule a hearing test appointment with a pediatric audiologist, who can evaluate and treat your child for possible hearing loss. Refer: A ”refer” result means that more information is needed to determine if the baby has hearing loss in one or both ears. A second hearing test will be administered before you and your baby are discharged. If the baby does not pass the second time, you will be referred to a pediatric audiologist for a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation. Dr. Rousso emphasizes the importance of promptly taking your baby to a pediatric audiologist for a complete evaluation if the baby does not pass the hearing screen, or if the baby is not developing speech or language. The sooner hearing loss is diagnosed and treated, the faster a baby’s brain can start to develop speech and language. To read the original article click here.

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Unbelievable Negative Side Effect of Taking Birth Control +5 Other Health Risks Revealed

The AHA! Team — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:21:49 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – The birth control pill has been long-heralded as one of the most innovative and important drugs ever to hit the market. But while we recognize the importance of reproductive health, we’ve had concerns for a long time about the unwanted side effects of this popular prescription medication. Doctors and scientists have known for years the range of health problems and risks imposed by oral contraceptives. For instance, a new study by Li et al. found how combined oral contraceptives are particularly vulnerable to drug interactions. These interactions can either reduce the effectiveness of the pill or increase risks like thrombosis, highlighting the need for careful evaluation when other medications are taken concurrently. To make matters worse, research has revealed a surprising side effect of “the pill” that may further isolate and challenge women. Women taking a birth control pill struggle with ’emotional recognition’ A team of researchers from Germany published an eye-opening paper in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. Their study, titled “Oral Contraceptives Impair Complex Emotion Recognition in Healthy Women,” ran a group of healthy women (42 of them on oral contraceptives, 53 not) through an emotional recognition test. How well could these women identify other people’s emotions based on complex and nuanced social cues and facial expressions? The researchers determined that “women with [oral contraceptive] use were indeed less accurate” – by a margin of about 10 percent – “in the recognition of complex expressions than women without [oral contraceptive] use,” especially with “difficult to recognize” expressions such as pride and contempt. Simpler emotions, such as fear and happiness, seemed to be spared the medication-induced oversight. The idea that taking such a common prescription medication can negatively alter a person’s psychological health may be surprising at first glance. But reams of data also indicate oral contraceptives increase the risk of depression – which women experience at a higher rate than men. What’s going on? The leading (and logical) hypothesis is that oral contraceptives alter a woman’s sex hormones, thereby influencing the neurobehavioral elements of a healthy psychological profile. Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing the pill does. As if emotional difficulties weren’t troubling enough – check out these 5 other harmful side effects Over 100 million women around the world use oral contraceptives – often for decades! We think physicians need to do a better job at clearly explaining the negative side effects these patients are likely to face. In addition to emotional recognition difficulties and depression, common adverse effects and risk factors of the pill include: Weight gain and a decrease in lean body mass Decrease a woman’s sex drive Increased risk of cancer, including cervical, breast, liver, ovarian and endometrial cancers Increased risk of heart disease, including stroke, heart attack, deep vein thrombosis (blood clots), and high blood pressure Headaches and migraines Women need to be aware of these well-documented consequences of this prescription medication. They should be educated more about other effective and affordable birth control options that are safer and impose less of a risk to physical and mental health. And in light of the new “male birth control pill” that’s been racing through clinical trials, we ask that doctors give the same due diligence to men, as well. Sources for this article include: NIH.gov Medicalnewstoday.com Medicalxpress.com Frontiersin.org To read the original article click here.

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Israeli Surgeons Correct Child’s Birth Defect with a 3D Printed Ear

AHA Publisher — Fri, 06 May 2022 07:00:48 +0000

Brian Blum via Israel21c – Israeli doctors attached a 3D-printed ear to a six-year-old boy born with microtia, a deformity that stops the development of a baby’s ear in the womb, usually during the first trimester of pregnancy. A company outside the hospital printed the synthetic prosthesis with a 3-D printer and adapted it to fit the child. The staff from the plastic surgery department at Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya then attached it and covered it with skin. Reconstructing an ear using cartilage and prosthetics is not unusual, but 3D printing that cartilage was a breakthrough. The entire procedure took three hours, and the boy was released from the hospital several days later. His grateful parents were moved to tears. Unfortunately, the ear is not functional because microtia causes blockage of the ear canal, a complication that’s not fixable through surgery. Even still, the synthetic prosthesis “reduces pain and complications that could be caused in the area from which the cartilage is extracted,” Dr. Amin Abu-Jabal, who led the surgical team, told Ynet. It offers “maximal accuracy and aesthetic in the highest level.” While microtia affects babies before they’re born, corrective surgery cannot be performed until a child is six years old, at which point the ear reaches about 85 percent of its full size. Microtia is usually not hereditary and, in most cases, affects only one ear. Approximately one in 6,000 to 8,000 babies are born with the condition and the cause is not known. They may have only a small ear or no ear at all. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Sheba Medical Center previously developed a way to 3D print the “scaffolding” required for ear reconstruction. This development was not connected to the reconstruction in Nahariya. To read the original article click here.

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Study Reveals Birth Defects Caused by Flame Retardant

AHA Publisher — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 07:00:01 +0000

University of Georgia via Newswise – *Research focuses on man’s exposure prior to conception. A new study from the University of Georgia has shown that exposure to a now-banned flame retardant can alter the genetic code in sperm, leading to major health defects in children of exposed parents. Published recently in Scientific Reports, the study is the first to investigate how polybrominated biphenyl-153 (PBB153), the primary chemical component of the flame retardant FireMaster, impacts paternal reproduction. In 1973, an estimated 6.5 million Michigan residents were exposed to PBB153 when FireMaster was accidentally sent to state grain mills where it made its way into the food supply. In the decades since, a range of health problems including skin discoloration, headache, dizziness, joint pain and even some cancers have been linked to the exposure. More striking, the children of those who were exposed seemed to experience a host of health issues as well, including reports of hernia or buildup in the scrotum for newborn sons and a higher chance of stillbirth or miscarriage among adult daughters. Yet, little work has been done to understand how the chemical exposure could have impacted genes passed from an exposed father, said study author Katherine Greeson. Relatively new idea “It is still a relatively new idea that a man’s exposures prior to conception can impact the health of his children,” said Greeson, an environmental health science doctoral student in Charles Easley’s lab at UGA’s College of Public Health and Regenerative Bioscience Center. “Most studies where a toxic effect is observed in children look only to the mothers and the same has been true of studies conducted on PBB153,” she said. Greeson and a team of researchers from UGA and Emory University used a unique combination of observational and laboratory approaches to demonstrate how PBB153 acted on sperm cells. “Typically, scientific studies are either epidemiological in nature and inherently observational or focus on bench science, but in this study, we did both,” said Greeson. This approach allowed the researchers to mimic the known blood exposure levels of PBB153 in a lab environment. “We were uniquely able to recreate this effect using our previously characterized human stem cell model for spermatogenesis,” she said, “which allowed us to study the mechanism that causes this effect in humans.” The team looked at the expression of different genes in their human spermatogenesis model after dosing with PBB153 and found marked alterations in gene expression between dosed and undosed cells, specifically at genes important to development, such as embryonic organ, limb, muscle, and nervous system development. Changes to the DNA “PBB153 causes changes to the DNA in sperm in a way that changes how the genes are turned on and off,” said Greeson. “PBB153 seems to turn on these genes in sperm which should be turned off,” said Greeson, which may explain some of the endocrine-related health issues observed in the children of exposed parents. Though the study used this model to directly replicate exposure to PBB153, Greeson says this approach could be used to better understand the impact of other environmental exposures on reproduction, including large-scale accidental exposures to toxic chemicals or everyday exposures. More studies combining epidemiology “Hopefully this work will lead to more studies combining epidemiology and bench science in the future, which will tell us more about why we’re seeing an effect from an environmental exposure in human populations and encourage experimental studies to more closely mimic human exposures,” she said. To read the original article click here.

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