Is gestational diabetes a risk factor for neonatal hearing loss?

Abstract

Aim: Newborn hearing screening is important for early detection of hearing loss in newborns. Gestational diabetes is a metabolic disease that can occur in pregnancy and cause complications such as those in the other diabetes mellitus patients. As uncomplicated gestational diabetes has not been described as a cause for prenatal complications in the literature, this study aimed to determine whether gestational diabetes is a risk factor for hearing impairment among newborns. Methods: This retrospective study included infants born between 2015 and 2017. The infants were divided into two groups: Control group consisted of 100 randomly selected children of healthy mothers. Study group consisted of 79 infants whose mothers had gestational diabetes mellitus. Exclusion criteria included other risk factors and 8 infants were excluded from the study due to risk factors other than gestational diabetes mellitus. The results of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions in infants of mothers with gestational diabetes were compared with those of infants of healthy mothers. Results: In this study, we compared transient evoked otoacoustic emission results of 71 infants of gestational diabetic mothers with 100 infants of healthy mothers. All the infants of healthy mothers, as well as the infants of mothers with gestational diabetes without risk factors, passed the transient evoked otoacoustic emission test. Conclusions: There was no difference detected in the hearing screening results between infants of mothers with gestational diabetes and infants of healthy mothers.