The International Tinnitus Journal

Prevalence of hearing loss in newborns of mothers who had malaria and were treated with antimalaric drugs in pregnancy

Author(s): Fernanda Soares Aurelio; Isis Pereira Dutra; Virginia Braz da Silva; Andre Luiz Lopes Sampaio; Carlos Augusto Costa Pires Oliveira

Introduction: Gestational malaria is related to very bad perinatal outcomes and antimalarial drugs used during pregnancy can be ototoxic to the fetus. Objective: To determine the prevalence of hearing loss in newborns of mothers who had malaria and treated with antimalarial drugs during pregnancy. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study which involved 35 newborns. All underwent neonatal hearing screening with otoacoustic emissions combined with automatic auditory brainstem response. Those who failed were referred to audiological diagnosis with evoked otoacoustic emissions and brainstem auditory evoked potential associated with tympanometry (1000 Hz). Data were obtained through interviews with the mothers’ and analyzing the patient chart and the newborn, and underwent to statistical tests analysis of variance, equality of two proportions and Chi-square test (p = 0.05).

Results: The infection by Plasmodium vivax and chloroquine treatment with the first quarter prevailed; 88.6% (n = 31) newborns passed the hearing screening and 11.4% (n = 4) failed, of these, 50% (n = 2) attended for diagnosis, being diagnosed with hearing loss.

Conclusion: The prevalence of hearing loss in newborns of mothers who had vivax malaria and used chloroquine during pregnancy was 3%.

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