A hearing baby, his deaf parents and the language of love

Karre* lay back on the hospital bed and looked at me with huge beautiful brown eyes, heavily laced with anxiety. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead and she tried to moisten her dry lips by running her tongue across her lower lip.

I called her by name and said hello. She nodded back. The nurse informed me that Karre was deaf but she could read lips very well, both in English and Swahili. All I needed was to make sure I faced her at all times while talking to her. My challenge was to craft short, straight-forward, yes/no answers, to ensure effective communication. She had a notebook and pen on her bedside table, but she was not going to be writing anything if the frequency of her contractions was anything to go by.

Karre was having her first baby. So far, the labour seemed to progress well and hopefully in another four hours, our baby would be here. I told Karre as much encouraged her to keep on sipping the water at her bedside to stay hydrated. She was given an injection to try and ease some of the pain as labour progressed. I went on with the rest of the reviews in the ward before taking a break.

When I saw Karre again, she was in intense pain, clinging onto the bedrail covered in sweat. She was groaning and appeared to be pushing with the contraction. I checked on her and noted that she was ready to deliver. She was not going to make it to the delivery suite. We had to finish our business in the room.

The nurse came with the delivery park while I got gloved and ready for our little one. I had to gently tap her so I could remind her to look at me in order to lip-read my instructions. Karre did great and 10 minutes later, a beautiful baby boy was born. He was howling his lungs out at the sudden thrust into this world. He was all wet and gooey when I put him on Karre’s abdomen and mouthed to her that he was wailing rather loudly. She burst into tears.

The rest of the delivery care was uneventful and within half an hour, Karre and her son were cuddled up together, attempting breastfeeding, while the nurse checked in on them every 30 minutes to ensure the fourth stage of labour was going on well. When she saw me walk by, she signalled me to come over. She had written on her notebook that her husband was likely to be hanging around outside the ward and would love to see them. She requested if I could find him. She noted that he was wearing an orange jacket, and his name was Michael*.

This was a small favour to ask. Karre was no ordinary patient and she deserved extraordinary treatment. It was bad enough that our maternity unit was too crowded to allow a mother the privilege of having her spouse by her side through this difficult period, let alone when one had to go through it while physically challenged on the communication aspect. Now that she was in the monitoring room where patient privacy wasn’t severely compromised, she had every right to have him at her bedside.

I walked out of the ward and saw an anxious young man seated on the stone bench outside, with his head in his hands. He was colourfully decked out in an orange jacket. There was no way I could be wrong. He had to be Michael. I tapped his shoulder gently and as he turned to face me, I asked if he was Michael. He instantly nodded and spoke to me in a hollow, almost metallic voice, “Karre?”

It hit me Michael was also deaf. He could speak back to me but not hear me, he had to lip-read. I was overwhelmed. I simply took his hand and pulled him into the ward, to Karre’s bedside. Seeing Karre and his son opened the floodgates. He openly wept with happiness. Karre joined him in shedding tears of joy. Their newborn bundle of joy seemingly felt the emotions and joined in.

Karre gently placed the newborn in daddy’s arms and encouraged him to cuddle his son. Michael looked at his son in wonder as another floodgate opened. He could sense his son crying by the vibrations from the baby on his chest. He could not hide his gratitude to God for granting them a beautiful son. The silent communication between the two spoke volumes; of love and immense joy. I slowly backed away to let them have their moment.

Congenital hearing loss like the one Karre suffered from can be a product of genetic abnormalities causing hearing loss alone or accompanied by other abnormalities; or from viral infections in the mother during pregnancy such as cytomegalovirus and rubella (German measles), hepatitis and syphilis; infections, such as rubella or herpes simplex virus. Other infant-associated causes include prematurity and low birth weight. Karre’s diagnosis of hearing loss was made late, and the underlying cause was never established. She was unable to learn any language skills hence the inability to verbalise words.

Hearing loss setting in after a period of normal hearing, like in Michael’s case, is commonly a result of injury to the hearing pathways caused by trauma to the head such as in falls, road accidents and violence; infections such as meningitis and mumps; and treatments such as chemotherapy. Michael’s deafness was a result of meningitis suffered when he was eight. Since he had already learnt to speak well, he could talk to us even though he could no longer hear us.

Their little angel was just perfect. He would undergo his hearing screening tests early to ensure nothing was missed. Early screening and diagnosis results in early interventions that may spare some hearing capacity or stop its progression from partial hearing loss to complete hearing loss where possible. Without neonatal screening programmes in Kenya, we miss out on many like Karre. However, every high risk baby must be screened in the first 28 days of life and followed up by an ear, nose and throat specialist.

Dr Bosire is an obstetrician/ gynaecologist