Alex Denman-Sang was born with moderate sensorineural bilateral hearing loss, which means that He has been practically deaf during his short life.
Alder Hey Children's Hospital in the UK tweeted the special moment when Alex hears his mother's voice for the first time thanks to implants. In the video, his mother Jen Denman looks at him and says "hello, I'm a mom" and the baby begins to smile. A tender reaction that has gone viral on social networks, with 840,000 views on Twitter.
Baby Alex was born with Bilateral Moderate Sensorineural hearing loss, making him almost deaf 😢 This is the amazing moment he is fitted with his new hearing aids and hears his mummy's voice clearly for the first time 😍 # amazing #toocute #audiology #technology #ilovealderhey pic.twitter.com/VSk6JauPjJ
- 🏥 Alder Hey Children's Hospital (@AlderHey) July 23, 2018
The importance of early detection of hearing loss
Babies are born hearing sounds and learn to speak by imitating the sounds around them and the voices of their parents and the people with whom they live. However, in some children this is not the case.
According to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) Five out of every 1,000 children are born with a hearing problem in Spain. And in one out of every thousand cases, deafness is profound.
Often, children who have a hearing loss do not acquire speech and language as well as children who can hear. That is why it is important to detect deafness as soon as possible.
Due to this need for early identification and intervention in the loss of childhood hearing, currently in almost all Spanish maternity hospitals, hearing tests are performed on the newborn. They are fast and painless and are part of the 'Hearing Loss Early Detection Program' initiative of 2003, established by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Autonomous Communities.
The National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the United States (NIDCD) ensures that "It is important that the child learns to speak before three years of life, when his brain is developing and maturing".
In addition, according to this same body, all investigations point to "that children with hearing loss who receive early help develop better language skills than those who do not receive it."
Luckily there are cochlear implants for babies in both ears, digital hearing aids, inductive loops ... Medical and technical advances have evolved in such a way that in many cases it is difficult to identify children born with profound deafness. The important thing is to discover the problem as soon as possible and give the child the appropriate treatment.
In Babies and More The emotional reaction of a mother to see that her deaf daughter listens for the first time, The emotional moment in which a deaf baby first hears a "I love you" from her mother
