This is PediCast.

Welcome to Pediacast, a pediatric podcast for parents.

And now, direct from the campus of nationwide children's, here is your host, Dr. Mike.

Hello, everyone, and welcome.

Once again to Pediacast.

It is a pediatric podcast for moms and dads.

This is Dr. Mike coming to you from the campus of nationwide children's hospital.

We're in Columbus, Ohio.

It is episode 412 for August 15th, 2018.

We're calling this one baby hearing loss, handwashing, and reading comprehension.

We want to welcome everyone to the program.

We have an answers to listener questions and pediatric news edition of the program for you this

week.

Our listener questions are spelled out in the title of this week's show.

We're going to cover baby hearing loss and especially the congenital sensory neural variety.

And I'll explain exactly what that means coming up.

Suffice it for now to say that this is the reason we like to perform a newborn hearing screen on every baby.

It's mandated in some states, optional and others. So for all expectant moms and

dads out there, when your baby is born, make sure you're an advocate and ask that they get

that hearing screen done as soon as possible, even if you live in a state that doesn't mandate it by

law. It's really important. And we'll explain why. We'll explore exactly how baby hearing tests work.

I mean, you can't ask a baby if he or she heard the sound, right? We'll talk about next steps if your baby fails the initial screen. Also, what causes hearing loss in babies? And how is it treated when hearing loss is confirmed after the initial screen?

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