Another very difficult road we had to follow with our baby, was his hearing difficulties. My husband and I realized at a very early stage that our baby did not react to sound the way he was supposed to. At first this was a blessing in disguise, because he could sleep through anything. And I mean anything! Even when my husband drilled in the baby room!
At first I was in denial. I did not want to believe the reality that my baby could be deaf. As the weeks went by I started noticing more and more differences between my baby's behavior and other babies his age. He did not turn his head when we spoke to him. He did not wake up from noise and he got very attached to me. I could never leave him alone in his room, not even when he slept. Whenever he woke up and he could not see me, he got hysterical.
At 6weeks we took him for his normal check ups and our pediatrition recommended that we take him for another hearing test. We did so and the girl simply told us that our baby could definitely not hear, but she could not give us a reason for this. We went to another audiologist 10days later and she told us that the hearing loss was because of fluid in the middle ear.
Babies with cleft palates can be more likely to develop fluid in the middle ear (serous otitis media) and glue ear than other babies. It is important that serous otitis media and glue ear are treated as these conditions can depress hearing by 20 or 30 decibels. This is enough to affect your baby’s appreciation of sounds and words, which in turn can affect his or her development of speech and language. If untreated, in the long term this may lead to chronic ear disease.
At this stage our baby was still too young for any treatment. The ENT prescribed cortisone and antibiotics and told us to start with the cortisone immediately and the antibiotics at 3months. He did not react to the cortisone very well, so we had to stop treatment until he was 3months old. It felt like we were up against a wall. I felt powerless. It was the longest month in my life!
And then one day I stood next to my sleeping baby in his cot and I spoke to him softly, like I always do, and he woke up. Later that day I tried it again, and again he woke up. All of a sudden my baby started hearing things. A few days after that we could start with the medication and a whole new world opened up for me. For the first time I knew that my baby could vaguely hear my voice. I started to play music to him and sang to him.
We went to the ENT again this week. He could still see some fluid, but the fact that we can guarantee him that he can hear us gave him peace of heart that he can postpone the grommet opperation until his palate will be closed.
What a relief!
