Jakob was born at Hilleroed Hospital on April 9, 2005, the second child of Lars and Karin, and Julie’s little brother. Both parents were grateful for the opportunity to have their new baby’s hearing screened as their first child Julie had been examined by an ENT physician at 19 months owing to a suspicion of hearing impairment. Fortunately, nothing was wrong with her hearing, but like many other kids, she was just a little slow at learning to speak.
Willing, well-informed and inquisitive
Both parents were given a brochure to read during Karin’s pregnancy so they understood the appointment to return to the hospital for screening was voluntary, and welcomed it. Typically, Lars had read up about the test and was curious about the screening program: “Of course, I was interested in how long the screening program had been running and what it had been like so far. She replied that the equipment was super, and that they had been screening for 1½ months doing about 16 babies per day. In that period, they had referred four babies for further testing and three had in fact had hearing problems. She knew of other counties where they were using different equipment and where they had referred a lot of cases, but where it had turned out that there was nothing actually wrong with the hearing.”
Competence evokes confidence
Both parents found the biomedical analyst performing the test to be helpful and competent – she even found time to answer Lars’ technical questions and to comment on the test equipment: “With this device, you just have to press one button, and it does all the rest by itself. It’s very simple and works fine.”
Hearing screening is painless – even for the parents
Lars confessed that the only anxiety he felt when they were called into the test room was about whether his newborn son would wake up and start crying. The biomedical analyst’s calm demeanor clearly helped: “when we got in there and saw how things were going, I wasn’t at all worried any more – she was evidently very much on top of things, and Jakob didn’t react at all.” Karin adds “Yes, she just said that she was putting the tip into the ear, and that he wouldn’t feel anything, and that was it. Nothing special. No elaborate explanations were required.”
It took less than 3 minutes before they were informed that the measurement was good, and that their baby’s hearing was normal. Lars recalls “Yes, it was very easy and quickly over. Jakob was fast asleep, which was good as we had been told that he had to be quiet and still, otherwise it would affect the measurement. So that was fine, and she just put the probe in the ear, pressed a button and waited a few moments before doing the same on the other ear. And then we were done.”
Relieving anxiety
All in all, the whole experience was deemed very positive by both parents: “We were certainly happy to have Jakob’s hearing tested. We didn’t assume there was anything wrong, but you can’t know for sure so it was great to get the green light and now we don’t have to worry any more about Jakob’s hearing.”