loml
‘If a child is newborn and has a history of prematurity or hyperbilrubinemia (neonatal jaundice)
• Hyperbilirubinemia requiring transfusion said:
Ah--exactly what happened to my daughter! Anyone else's deafness linked to this cause? Basically, my daughter's hearing loss was caused by Rh-incompatibility. I am A negative--my first child was A positive--I had the Rhogam shot and was told "all was well"(although my first child DID have severe jaundice)--second pregnancy and THEN was told about being sensitized to the Rh factor--monitored closely with high risk pregnancy--baby was A positive so my antibodies "attacked" her--she had multiple blood transfusions both before and after her birth--delivered by C-section at 34 weeks because of fetal distress--neonatal intensive care with anemia and severe hyperbilirubinemia--finally released and told "all is well"--fast forward about one year when she was diagnosed with a hearing loss, most likely the result of hyperbilirubinemia.
Through the internet, I once met the mother of a deaf child with the same history as my daughter. She mentioned Dr. Berlin and his research. Although our children SEEMED to have the same cause for their hearing loss, the results also seemed to be quite different. With my daughter, I think both tests showed a loss, hearing aids worked great for her, and she learned to listen and speak just fine--she MAY have a learning disability that MAY be linked to a processing disorder, but that is hard to say for sure--she has been doing fine academically lately and I am just not sure about the LD diagnosis or not. The other child with a similar history had a different outcome--I think that maybe he had very different results on the two tests, that maybe hearing aids did NOT help him(and I think she said that CI wouldn't either because of the auditory neuropathy)--therefore, I think he has NO access to sound(but not sure about that) and I think has no speech--and I have no idea whether he has a processing disorder or not. I haven't communicated with this other mother in a while, so I am not sure how her child is doing and cannot speak about all of the specifics. I just remember how amazing it was to meet someone else who had been through such a rare and unique pregnancy experience with some similar issues with their baby.
So--it is really rare these days for these problems to occur--Rh-incompatibility is rare now that the Rhogam shot is available and USUALLY prevents it from happening--we are in the one percent in which it failed to work. I am wondering if hyperbilirubinemia occurs in other instances--are their other things that can result in this condition? Or is it mostly limited to Rh-disease? If so, that would mean that there are only a few kids in today's world that lost their hearing due to this condition, and I guess even fewer kids who develop auditory neuropathy due to it. Isn't it interesting--two people going through the same thing and getting similar results, yet still it can manifest itself so differently? In other words: kids who have similar problems at birth and end up losing some hearing due to these problems can still have very different types of hearing loss and/or other disorders? From what I have read, I am going to assume that my daughter does not have auditory neuropathy--it appears that hearing aids would not help children with that disorder, yet they work well for her. The human body sure is complex--and amazing!--isn't it?
