[Hearing screening of newborns. Preliminary results]. / Le dépistage auditif des nouveau-nés. Résultats préliminaires.

Since 1976, an hearing screening is organized at the Clinic Edith Cavell. The testing was based on a behavioral technique of Veit-Bizaguet and, since 2001, the otoacoustic emissions are realised. The National Institutes of Health (1993) recommends universal newborn hearing screening of all newborns before 3 months of age and identification and treatment before 6 months of age. Indeed, detection of hearing loss and early intervention allow a better access to the language and consequently an easier schooling and social integration. This article shows the results of the screening from february at the end of December 2002. These data are compared with those of the literature.

Clinical symptoms associated with brief obstructive sleep apnea in normal infants.

Relatively little data exist concerning the manifestations of repeated obstructive sleep apnea in normal infants. A questionnaire concerning daytime and sleep habits was completed by the parents of 4,100 healthy infants before they underwent a 9-hour night monitoring study. One hundred infants with an obstructive apnea index above 1.2 were randomly selected. They formed the "apnea" group. From the initial population, 300 infants with no apnea were also selected to form the "no-apnea" group. Both groups were matched for sex, gestational age, post conceptional age, birth weight, mother's age, parity and a family history of sudden infant death. Five variables from the questionnaires significantly differentiated the two groups of infants. When awake, the infants with apnea were characterized by a greater frequency of breathholding spells (22% of apnea infants) and episodes of fatigue during feeding (28%) than the non-apnea infants. During sleep, they exhibited a greater frequency of profuse sweating (15%), snoring (26%) or noisy breathing (44%). Multiple symptoms were present in some infants. A stepwise logistic regression resulted in two significant independent variables: profuse sweating during sleep (p = 0.008) and noisy breathing (p = 0.002). The predictive value of these two symptoms was tested on a new group of 650 healthy infants. The two independent variables led to the correct classification of 60 of the 67 infants with apnea (89.67%) and 382 of the 583 non-apnea infants (65.5%). A positive history alone had a positive predictive value of 0.21.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)