Which Is the Best Time to Perform the Newborn Hearing Screening? Preliminary Results of a Study Conducted in a Public Hospital of Porto Alegre

Introduction: Neonatal hearing screening (NHS) is essential for early detection of hearing loss, which may be congenital or acquired. Such loss could have educational, professional, and social consequences due to the great importance it plays in human communication and in the correct development of other fields, such as oral language. Government guidelines indicate that testing should be performed between 24 and 48 hours of life. However, in some cases, the NHS is not performed in this interval life time due to the time of discharge and/or clinical complications.

Objectives: To analyze and compare the results of the NHS carried out at different times of life in babies born in a public hospital in Porto Alegre.

Methods: It is a prospective longitudinal study. Infants were tested at 12, 24, and 36 hours of life. The parents/caretakers for the babies were contacted after delivery and appropriately informed about the study. All signed a consent form.

Results: Among the infants evaluated (n = 18), 66% had the results in 24 hours confirmed in testing with 36 hours.

Conclusion: The NHS was carried out with 24 hours of life already shows satisfactory results for the tests of Otoacoustic Emissions and Auditory Brainstem Response—screening modality.

Keywords: Neonatal screening, newborn, hearing.