Inner Ear Defect, Pregnancy Not Associated With Developing Deafness, Study Says

Main Category: Ear, Nose and Throat
Article Date: 21 May 2005 - 10:00 PDT

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Pregnancy and delivery have no effect on the hearing of women who have an inner ear defect, called otosclerosis, despite a "long-standing belief" that the combination could lead to deafness, according to a study conducted by private Ohio physicians and presented earlier this week at a meeting of the... Triological Society -- an ear, nose and throat doctor association -- in Boca Raton, Fla., the Los Angeles Times reports. Physicians have "long believed" that pregnancy "exacerbates" otosclerosis, a condition that affects an estimated 500,000 U.S. residents, approximately two-thirds of them women, according to the Times. However, Dr. William Lippy, a private-practice physician in Warren, Ohio, and colleagues examined the records of two groups of women who had undergone a procedure to treat otosclerosis -- those who had the condition and children and those who had the condition but had no children. Using a variety of hearing tests, Lippy concluded that the hearing of the women who had children was no worse than those who did not, according to the Times.

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Lippy said the source of the belief that the inner ear condition and pregnancy led to deafness appears to come from a directive by a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany's eugenics program to remove people with "genetic defects" from the general population -- including forced abortions and sterilizations of women with otosclerosis, the Times reports. Brad Welling -- chair of department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health -- said although the study is "good information, better than what we have ever had," it is "not going to make a lot of difference in terms of family planning" because current treatments for otosclerosis allow most women with the disorder to become pregnant if they wish. Rick Friedman of the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles said he is "skeptical" of Lippy's study and believes there is "some association" between hearing loss and pregnancy for women with otosclerosis, according to the Times. However, he added that "there is simply no reason any more to tell a woman not to get pregnant. ... It is one of the disorders that can be readily fixed by a brief operation" (Maugh, Los Angeles Times, 5/20).

"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/repro The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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