by Andrea Mooney on October 7, 2011
Kids and teens regularly exposed to second-hand smoke are almost twice as likely to develop hearing loss than children who aren’t usually around it, according to a recent study by the Archives of Otolaryngology. And if something as seemingly unrelated as second-hand smoke contributes to hearing loss in kids, what else can erode a child’s hearing?
Brian Fligor, ScD, director of Diagnostic Audiology at Children’s Hospital Boston, says everyday things that seem harmless are actually degrading our hearing without us realizing it. “Unfortunately, hearing loss is something that affects a lot of people, but it’s also something we can’t see,” he says. “It’s kind of a sinister thing.” Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 7, 2010
by Kristin Cantu on March 5, 2010
by Nitya Rao on October 21, 2009
Many parents wonder whether their child will suffer from permanent hearing damage due to continually listening to loud iPods and other MP3 players.
So parents all over Europe must have been both worried and relieved last month when the European Union (EU) substantiated their fears and issued new guidelines limiting volume settings and recommended exposure times to protect its citizens’ hearing.
The EU guidelines state:
- All makers of portable music players must lower their default volume setting from 100 decibels (dB, the sound of a jetliner) to 80 dB (the sound of road traffic)
- The default level can be overridden by consumers who choose to do so
- Manufacturers must add a health warning to all new devices within the next two years
- At 80 dB, exposure should be limited to 40 hours a week
- According to a BBC news report, these rules were framed in response to new research, which claimed that one in 10 users of portable music devices who listened at high volume for more than one hour per day over five years risked permanent hearing damage. Full story »
by Annie Cardi on August 17, 2009
Discovering that your child is deaf can be overwhelming—how will his language skills develop? How do you communicate? One increasingly common option is a cochlear implant. Between an external speech processor (roughly the size of a hearing aid) and an internal receiver (surgically implanted in a child’s inner ear), a cochlear implant can provide a child with the sensation of hearing. With 97 percent of deaf children born to hearing parents, this surgery can be life changing for the whole family. Full story »
Kids and teens regularly exposed to second-hand smoke are almost twice as likely to develop hearing loss than children who aren’t usually around it, according to a recent study by the Archives of Otolaryngology. And if something as seemingly unrelated as second-hand smoke contributes to hearing loss in kids, what else can erode a child’s hearing?
Children’s 
