Can a blast cause high-frequency hearing loss in a child?

Question

Hello doctor,

My 9-year-old daughter has recently been diagnosed with mild high-frequency hearing loss in both ears. Her hearing levels are only slightly below normal, and this is not significantly impacting her day-to-day life, so, for the moment, the audiology team is monitoring it.

My concern is that I may have inadvertently caused it when she was a baby. There was one time when she was a young baby (maybe two months old) and she was in a rear-facing car seat in the front of my car, that is, her ears were near the speakers at the front of the car.

I turned the engine on, and the radio blasted out loud; I think it was probably on volume 12 or 13. I turned it down straight away, and she did not cry, but now I feel awful that I may have damaged her hearing. Could you please tell me how likely it is that a one-off incident like this would have caused it?

Kindly help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I understand your worry. It is possible to develop such hearing loss due to what we call acoustic trauma, which is noise-induced. However, we can never be sure whether the loss is due to that incident, some other cause, or if the loss was congenitally present.

What you can do to prevent further deterioration is to avoid letting her listen to loud music, keep her away from loud sounds, use noise-isolating earbuds when there is excessive noise outside, eat a healthy diet, and meditate.

Rather than worrying about what could have caused the loss, I think it would be prudent to focus on preventing any further damage to her ears and guiding your daughter on the right path to achieve what she wants.

I hope you are satisfied with my answer.

For further queries, you can consult me.

Thank you.