Universal Newborn Hearing Screening: Should We Leap Before We Look?

Universal screening of newborn infants for hearing loss will inaccurately label many children as impaired, increase the use of unnecessary diagnostic testing, and increase parental anxiety, despite clear evidence that it is cost-effective. Newborn screening for hearing loss is inexact, and as many as 90% of children labeled as impaired will in fact have normal hearing. As the prevalence of newborn hearing loss is low, attempts to use parental education and mass-media outreach should precede efforts to increase newborn testing.
ABBREVIATIONS. NIH, National Institutes of Health; HRR, highrisk-register; ICN, intensive care nursery. Across the nation pediatricians are being importuned, and indeed propelled, to implement universal newborn hearing screening, despite a [...]