The viral video that has every one’s heart bursting with love shows a young baby getting the opportunity to hear for the first time, thanks to the hearing aids given to her. Her older sister is shown in the video interacting with her, resulting in squeals of joy – music to the ears of mother, Carol Benjamin.
Carol wrote into Hope Rises about the experience and shared an update on how her baby is doing with her new hearing devices.
“I have been crying tears for days! My baby is much happier and active, and it truly breaks my heart that this was the first time she really heard what our family sounded like.
Backing it up, my baby’s name is Scarlet and her sister is Halie. Scarlet was born three months premature, and when she was seven days old, she developed NEC – an infection that eats away at your intestines. The antibiotics she needed to help combat the infection caused the hearing loss.
We were sent all over the place trying to get a good scan because she failed her hearing test at the hospital. When they give the hearing test to infants they have to be asleep. They put the wires around her tiny head and behind her ears. They then put tubes in the infant’s ears and the machine produces the clicking sounds, as they monitor the infant’s brain activity to see their reaction.
After eight months of waiting, doctors decided to go ahead with her hearing aids. It’s a very long process.
It’s so important to catch hearing loss as early as possible because the sooner they get used to hearing aids, the sooner their language develops and gets better. That only means they are happier, and not as confused by their surroundings.
We often take for granted the things that we think we are automatically supposed to have. Hearing aids make the biggest difference in the world, and I am ecstatic Scarlet is benefiting from them.”
