Neonatal hearing screening - the Indian experience.

A neonatal hearing screening programme has been established in Pune, India. A total of 2621 babies were screened from August 2005 to August 2007 using otoacoustic emissions (OAE) followed by brainstem evoked response audiometry (BERA) for those who referred on the second OAE testing. Two hundred and forty nine babies were referred on the second OAE testing and of these only 52 came back and were further evaluated using BERA. Fifteen of these 52 babies were found to have a significant hearing loss. The significance of these results is discussed.