At Lila's 1 week appointment with the midwives, they did a hearing screen to make sure she could hear. Her right ear passed, but her left ear got a referral. The midwife assured as that this did not necessarily mean anything was wrong, but that her test wasn't sophisticated enough to determine the results. She told us that over 90% of referrals end up with perfectly good result. So she gave us the number to audiology department at The Children's Hospital and recommended we get the test.
We did the test on Wednesday. I found it pretty interesting. I don't know all the details, but I'll explain to you what my understanding is of the test. As you can see in the picture, three electrode things were put on Lila's head - one on her forehead and two behind each ear. Then a probe thing was placed in the ear to be tested. This probe is how the audiologist sent different frequencies of sound into Lila's ear. Now, for this test to work, Lila had to be completely asleep because in order to know if she could hear the sound, the audiologist checked if her brain was responding to it. Anytime a baby is awake, there is already brain activity - this interferes with the test.
It took a good hour to get Lila to fall asleep (yay for having a baby that nurses forever). But once she was asleep, there was no waking her up! We are blessed with a very heavy sleeper (like her mom). Many babies wake up multiple times during the test... not my kid! I actually couldn't help but laugh when the audiologist insisted on whispering. I knew my baby wasn't going to wake up!
Both of Lila's ears passed with flying colors! Since she slept so well, the test went fairly quick - probably around 20 minutes per ear. After this test, the audiologist performed an inner ear test. I honestly have no idea what this test was, but it didn't require the electrode things and it was super fast. She passed! The last test was to see if there was fluid in her ears. Nope, no fluid! The audiologist said Lila's ears were perfect :)
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