“There is little doubt that these levels could cause hearing loss, and, because of this, people so affected will need to play things even louder, potentially incurring additional hearing loss, when they are teens,” he said. “This demonstrates the need for guidelines on the sound levels produced by ISMs. Consumers assume that, since it is available for my child, it must be safe.”
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June 2014Stacey Ishman, MD, MPH, associate professor of otolaryngology and pulmonary medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, noted possible concerns in both the sleep medicine and surgical sides of her practice. “Potentially, this gives us something else to think about when evaluating patients for hearing loss,” she said. “In addition, we probably should add these concerns when we talk about noise exposures to family.”
John H. Greinwald, MD, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, is less sure about the results. While the idea that parents should be conscious about noise exposure in infants is well founded, he is not as convinced that the sound levels are consistently that high in actual use. “Just reading the article, you might think that all of these give off sounds that are way too high for a baby, but I don’t know if parents are really using it that loud and for that long,” he said. “My overall take is that this is more of an awareness study than one saying we should do something.”
Research has not linked ISMs to human disease, as evidenced by the fact that there is no epidemic of hearing loss in infants or very young children. Dr. Greinwald also said that no gold standard for noise levels exists, other than keeping the levels below 90 dBA.
Kurt Ullman is a freelance medical writer based in Indiana.
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