BACKGROUND: hearing loss in newborns. Aim: to verify the prevalence of auditory alterations in newborns of Hospital São Paulo (hospital), observing if there are any correlations with the following variables: birth weight, gestational age, relation weight/gestational age and risk factors for hearing loss. METHOD: A retrospective analysis of the hospital records of 1696 newborns; 648 records of preterm infants and 1048 records of infants born at term. All of the infants had been submitted to an auditory evaluation consisting of: Transient Otoacoustic Emissions, investigation of the cochleal-palpebral reflexes and acoustic imittance tests, identifying the type and level of hearing loss. RESULTS: sensorineural hearing loss was identified in .82% of the infants who were born at term and in 3.1% of the preterm infants - with a statistically significant difference. Conductive hearing loss was the most frequent type of hearing loss in both groups, occurring in 14.6% of the term infants and in 16.3% of the preterm infants. Alteration of the central auditory system was considered as a possible diagnosis for 5.8% of the preterm infants and for 3.3% of the term infants. For the group of infants who were born at term, a significant correlation was observed between failure in the hearing screening test and the presence of risk factors such as family history and presence of a syndrome - the child who presented a syndrome had 37 times more chances of failing in the hearing screening test and seven times more chances of failing in the right ear when there was a family history for hearing loss. The lower the gestational age (< 30 weeks) and birth weight (< 1500g), the higher the chances of failing in the hearing screening test (3 times more). CONCLUSION: hearing loss had a higher occurrence in preterm infants who remained in the ICU. Gestational age and birth weight were important variables related to the possibility of failure in the hearing screening test. A correlation was observed between the presence of a syndrome and sensorineural hearing loss in infants who were born at term.
Hearing Loss; Screning; Risk Factors; Prevalence
