What antibiotics cause hearing loss in newborns?

Gentamicin is one of the most commonly used antibiotics for empirical treatment of neonatal sepsis [26, 27]. Animal experiments and clinical studies on adults and children indicate that gentamicin can cause damage to the inner ear cells, resulting in irreversible SNHL.

Can antibiotics cause deafness?

Antibiotics, which treat bacterial infections, are essential, life-saving medicines. But just like any medication, they carry the risk of side effects. When it comes to one potent class of antibiotics, known as aminoglycosides, these potential side effects include hearing loss, tinnitus and balance problems.

Which antibiotic causes deafness in children?

Medications that are known to be ototoxic (damaging to hearing) are sometimes prescribed to babies to treat serious infections or birth complications. The most common ototoxic medications are a family of antibiotics called aminoglycosides, with names such as gentamycin, tobramycin, kanamycin, and streptomycin.

Can antibiotics cause temporary hearing loss?

The Problems with Certain Antibiotics Along with chemotherapy drugs, loop diuretics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), aminoglycoside antibiotics such as gentamicin are one of the most ototoxic groups of drugs regularly prescribed. Their use can lead to temporary or permanent hearing loss and tinnitus.

What can damage a newborns hearing?

Your child’s inner ears may be damaged if he or she is around extremely loud noises or around loud noises for long periods of time. Noise-induced hearing loss is gradual and painless. Once the hearing nerve is destroyed, it is permanent. A hearing test can be done by an audiologist or an ENT.

How common is hearing loss in newborns?

Up to 3 in 1,000 babies (less than 1 percent) are born with some kind of hearing loss in the United States each year. When a baby is born with hearing loss, it’s called congenital hearing loss. Hearing loss also can develop later in babies or during childhood or adulthood.

Can antibiotics cause deafness in babies?

Intensive-care antibiotics used for life-threatening infections can seriously damage the hearing of some children, a study has shown. Researchers found that one in 500 caucasian babies are affected by a particular genetic mutation that renders them vulnerable to the drugs.

Can amoxicillin cause deafness?

In the cases where time to onset is documented, deafness was encountered shortly following the administration of amoxicillin capsule/tablet. In the majority of the deafness cases associated with amoxicillin, other drugs were concurrently taken. Thus, the case is difficult to attribute only to amoxicillin.

Can amoxicillin affect your hearing?

Conclusion. There appears a causal association between amoxicillin and hearing loss that requires further substantiation with better epidemiologic studies.

Can antibiotics cause hearing loss in babies?

What do newborns prefer hearing?

Newborns seem to prefer a higher-pitched voice (the mother’s) to a low sounding voice (males). They also have the ability to tune out loud noises after hearing them several times. It is estimated that serious hearing loss occurs in about 2 to 3 of every 1,000 newborns.

Can a bacterial infection on antibiotics cause hearing loss?

Antibiotics for bacterial infections may cause hearing loss. Patients treated with aminoglycoside antibiotics are at risk of hearing loss, a study shows.

When to rescreen a newborn for hearing loss?

If the newborn passes the screening or the rescreening and has risk factors for late-onset or progressive hearing loss, then it will be very important to monitor the newborn’s hearing during early childhood (Harlor & Bower, 2009; JCIH, 2007). Care should be taken not to screen newborns more times than recommended in the protocol.

Why are aminoglycosides linked to hearing loss in babies?

As a consequence, infants in neonatal intensive care units, where aminoglycosides are used, have rates of hearing loss at least six times higher than among otherwise healthy full-term babies. To better understand why this class of drugs is linked with hearing loss, Steyger and his colleagues tested the effects of gentamicin on hearing in mice.

Are there any new antibiotics for newborns now?

Steyger adds that with new techniques that can identify microbes responsible for infection more rapidly, doctors may soon be less reliant on broad-spectrum antibiotics to treat newborns.