Most newborns pass this medical test with flying colours

Everything about Kerryn Elliott's pregnancy with her first child was normal. Even the birth went to plan.

Kerryn, 35, who lives on the family farm in Longreach, Queensland with her husband Sam and their four children Emily, seven, Henry, six, Taylor, four, Heidi is four weeks, didn't even flinch when she was told her newborn's hearing test didn't give them the result they needed.

"I remember she kept doing it," Kerryn tells 9Honey. "She did it a couple of times. I just thought the machine wasn't working or her ears were blocked. I wasn't worried at all."

The newborn hearing test is conducted before they are discharged and are usually just a formality. Most babies pass with flying colours.

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Kerryn was told to bring baby Emily back in a week to have the test done again.

"That week I wasn't thinking about the problem with her hearing test," she says. "I thought I'd go back and everything would be fine."

The same midwife did the test again and the result was the same.

There was no "recall" coming from one of Emily's ears.

Mother and baby were sent down to Brisbane to see an audiologist. She was born on December 1, 2012, and it was approaching Christmas when they made the trip.

It was there they discovered Emily was profoundly deaf in her right year and had only a little bit of hearing in her left ear.

There was no history of hearing loss in the family but the cause of Emily's hearing loss was found through the newborn "heel prick test".

It came back as positive for Cytomegalovirus. Kerryn had been sick with a cold during her pregnancy and had no idea she had contracted a virus that could harm her unborn child's hearing.

"The only option given to us at first was hearing aids," she says. "A cochlear implant wasn't mentioned then. They just wanted to see how she goes."

Four months passed before Kerryn took Emily back to Brisbane so her hearing aids could be fitted. Having barely been able to hear for her entire life, it was startling to her when they were initially turned on.

A cochlear implant would be fitted into Emily's left ear, with the surgery happening just before Kerry gave birth to the couple's second child in August 2014.

"We had to stay in Brisbane for three weeks because we weren't allowed to fly and when they turned it on, she actually just screamed and screamed," Kerryn says. "She screamed probably for a few months.

"It was a scared sort of cry."

That was because Emily was hearing more and louder than ever before.

The decision was made to turn it on for an hour here and there to give her time to adjust to all the sound she was hearing.

These days Emily, seven, is thriving.

"She speaks really clearly and has caught up to everyone else," Kerryn says. "She loves school. She loves reading and English and writing and art."

Emily and her family are sharing their story for Loud Shirt Day on Friday October 23, 2020. Find out more Loud Shirt Day on Friday October 23, 2020.