OTITIS MEDIA WITH EFFUSION (OME) : THE PERLMUTTER RECOMMENDATION

If your 2- or 3-year-old gets an ear infection (diagnosed by your physician), I recommend not pursuing antibiotic therapy for at least the first forty-eigth to seventy-two hours, as the cause may be a virus: in addition, antibiotics typically will not eliminate middle ear fluid. You should ask your physician for an anesthetic eardrop to decrease the pain. In addition, diphenhydramine (Benadryl) often works wonders in terms of “taking the age off” and allowing you and your child to get some much needed rest. The specific products I recommend are Children’s Benadryl Dye-Free Allergy Liquid of Benadryl Dye-Free Allergy Gels. Make sure to read the package so you use the appropriate dosage for your child.

Another excellent choice to alleviate the pain of an ear infection for your child is children’s strengh ibuprofen, as it will both alleviate pain and reduce inflammation and fever. Again, pay attention to the directions an the package to ensure you give your child the right dosage for his or her weigth and age.

Keep your infant well hydrated by increasing the frequency of breast freeding; for the older child, offer plenty of spring water and diluted fruit juices and avoid dairy products, as they tend to increase the mucous secretions.

I have found Recharge Sports Drink particularly helpful when kids have ear infection, colds, or diarrhea. Recharge is an all-natural product that contains important electrolytes, which , in my opinion, clearly help children feel better sooner. Other helpful ideas include propping tour child’s head up with a pillow or two to improve drainage of fluid through the eustachian tube. In addition, a warm, moist compress will also often help alleviate pain.

Fluid behind the eardrum (OME) can significantly harm a child’s hearing. If the problem persist, children may, in fact require the insertion of ear tubes. This allows drainage of the fluid and ventilation of the region behind the eardrum, allowing hearing to be restored.

Finally, it’s also important to remember that ear infections, on rare occasion, can be a sign of other, more serious problems. Call your doctor if your child experiences a severe headache, stiffness of the neck, fever, chills, sudden hearing loss, dizziness, or sudden and severe ear pain with drainage, even if the pain is alleviated upon drainage.

On very useful device is the EarCheck monitor, which uses sound waves to eveluate the eardrum. The EarCheck monitor can signify the degree if infection and help you determine whether or not you need to visit your child’s pediatrician. 

HOW TO PREVENT HEARING LOSS FROM TAKING A TOLL ON YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT

With all this evidence that hearing impairment affects a child’s development and performance, I believe strongly in screening children for hearing as early as possible.

In fact, I am very much in favor of screening newborns for hearing problems, which is not a universal practice. A growing number  of proffesionals, including neonatologist, believe it imperative to screen infants as early as possible, ideally at birth and certainly by the age of 1 to 2 months at the latest. Each day, some thirty-three infants in the United States are born with total hearing loss, the most common congenital disorder in newborns, and twenty times more prevalent than phenylketonuria, a condition for which all newborn are currently screened. An estimated sixty additional infants per day are born with moderate hearing loss that could be exposed with universal newborn screening and intervention programs. Furthermore, statistics show that 90 percent of hearing-impaired infants have known risk factors. That infants at highest risk for hearing loss, not surprisingly, are those in the neonatal intensive care unit where the risk of moderate-to-severe permanent hearing loss in both ears is ten to twenty times higher than in the general population.

As advocates of early hearing detection and intervention programs (EHDI) can tell you, universal newborn hearing screening can identify those infants who have even moderate hearing loss, enabling them to receive speech and language therapy, amplification, and family support immediately, before their development falls far behind that the other children of their age. This kind of universal screening even has the potential to reduce the disparity in language skills between deaf and hearing children.