Neonatal hearing loss is one of the health problems that has received more attention in this decade. This is due to the development of management to improve children's functional, intellectual, emotional, and social abilities. Neonatal hearing loss generally has a sensorineural type that is bilateral with a degree of severe to very severe. 1,2
As much as 80% of sensorineural hearing loss in children is a health problem that is congenital and occurs during the neonatal period. This hearing loss is reported to occur in 1-3% of births and in 2-4% of neonates in the care room. intensive, which more often occurs compared to disorders such as congenital hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria. 3 Based on research conducted in Brussels, Belgium in 2023, found hearing loss occurred in 362 (66.4%) neonates with 133 (24.4%) infants diagnosed with permanent hearing loss. Ninety infants (56 bilateral and 34 unilateral) had sensorineural hearing loss. 4
Congenital hearing loss can be classified based on etiology. As many as 50% from case caused by by genetics, 25% got (infection perinatal, hyperbilirubinemia, birth complications) and the rest are due to idiopathic reasons. A number of factor risk disturbance hearing including history previous family history of hearing loss, craniofacial abnormalities, complex congenital abnormalities associated with congenital hearing loss, infection default (infection TORCH), heavy body born low (1500 g),
prematurity (33 weeks), hyperbilirubinemia, ototoxic drugs, bacterial meningitis, low APGAR score within 1 minutes (0-4), low APGAR score within 5 minutes (0-6), mechanical ventilation for 5 minutes days or more and was admitted to the NICU for more than 7 days. 1.5
One of the risk factors that is related to hearing loss is hyperbilirubinemia. Hyperbilirubinemia in neonates is the presence of level bilirubin total in serum on 5 mg/dL accompanied by clinical jaundice. The auditory pathway is a part of the nervous system that is sensitive to the toxic effects of bilirubin. Increased indirect bilirubin in the blood can cross the blood-brain barrier and precipitate in the nucleus cells of the auditory ventricles. Hearing loss due to hyperbilirubinemia can occur at mild to severe levels. Hearing loss occurs about 10-50 times more often in neonates with severe jaundice. Total bilirubin levels have the highest predictability for infant hearing status. 6