{"id":656,"date":"2020-09-01T03:54:11","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T03:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/?p=656"},"modified":"2020-09-01T03:54:51","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T03:54:51","slug":"a-baby-hears-his-parents-voices-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/a-baby-hears-his-parents-voices-for-the-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"A Baby Hears His Parents\u2019 Voices for the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eleven-month-old Julian Epstein sat between his parents in a private room in the Hearing and Speech Center with a team from NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, his attention on the stuffed elephant in his hands. His care team had decorated the room with presents, a cake, and silver balloons that spelled out \u201cAce,\u201d Julian\u2019s nickname, meaning \u201cthe highest, luckiest, most valuable card in the deck\u201d to his parents, Tracy DiMarco-Epstein and Corey Epstein. Also in tow were Julian\u2019s grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousin, and two older sisters, as they all waited for a special moment in Julian\u2019s life: He was going to hear for the very first time.<\/p>\n

The day Julian was born, Tracy and Corey were told that he failed two newborn hearing tests. They noticed soon after that he wasn\u2019t responding when they spoke to him. After Julian failed two more hearing tests, his pediatrician suggested they see an audiologist. When they met Dr. Michelle Kraskin, an audiologist and the assistant director of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. George Alexiades, an otologist\/neurotologist at NewYork-Presbyterian\/Weill Cornell Medical Center, they knew immediately that they had found the help Julian needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just fell in love with them,\u201d Tracy says, adding that the whole care team quickly felt like family. Still, the news the team delivered took time to process.<\/p>\n

The auditory brain response (ABR) hearing test given by Dr. Kraskin confirmed that Julian was profoundly deaf in both ears. After an MRI showed that the nerves in his ears were intact, making him a candidate for a cochlear implant, the family chose to move forward with the procedure. A small, electronic hearing device would be surgically implanted to help provide a sense of sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe implant is made up of two parts,\u201d explains Dr. Kraskin, who has a doctorate in audiology. \u201cOne part is the internal electrode, which is permanently implanted under the skin, and the other part is the external processor, located behind the ear. The processor takes acoustical sounds and converts them into electrical signals that the brain can interpret as sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Alexiades adds, \u201cUnlike hearing aids, which amplify sounds, cochlear implants do the work of damaged parts of the inner ear, or cochlea, to provide sound signals that get transmitted to the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tracy and Corey were concerned about putting their infant son through surgery, but decided to put their trust in their team. On March 19, 2019, Dr. Alexiades, who is also the director of the Cochlear Implant Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, performed surgery on Julian\u2019s right ear and implanted an electrode in the cochlea, or inner ear, to stimulate the auditory nerve. After the three-hour procedure, he delivered good news: The surgery was a success and Julian would be ready to have his implant activated as soon as he healed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cWhen he hugged me, it just melted my heart. He knows he can now hear my voice. I can\u2019t believe this day has finally come. I\u2019m so thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tracy DiMarco-Epstein<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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A New World of Sound<\/strong>
\nLess than a month later, on April 11, the big moment finally arrived. Dr. Kraskin, who had guided the family from the beginning, activated the cochlear implant \u2014 essentially turning the device on \u2014 and encouraged his parents to be the first people to speak to Julian. A hush fell over the room as Tracy softly spoke her son\u2019s name. Julian immediately turned to her and watched her mouth as she spoke before a huge smile spread across his face. He then reached for her, nestling his head on her shoulder. Corey was next, then Julian\u2019s sisters, Jayden and Skylar, who gave their baby brother kisses while signing and saying, \u201cWe love you, Julian.\u201d With each new person who spoke his name, Julian whipped his head around to meet their voice, his grin growing ever larger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he hugged me, it just melted my heart,\u201d Tracy says. \u201cHe knows he can now hear my voice. I can\u2019t believe this day has finally come. I\u2019m so thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that he\u2019s able to hear his sisters\u2019 voices, and my voice, and his mother\u2019s voice, it\u2019s just a miracle,\u201d Corey says. \u201cWe can\u2019t ask for anything more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family celebrated with a specially made cake in the shape of a cochlear implant, T-shirts that read \u201cHip Hip Hooray, Today is Activation Day,\u201d and calls from family and friends who used FaceTime to see and talk to Julian. His care team joined in the celebration, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never know how a baby will react. Sometimes they get upset and cry, because it\u2019s all so new and can be overwhelming, but Julian reacted extremely well,\u201d Dr. Kraskin says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special day and we\u2019re honored the family put their trust in us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julian turns 1 on Mother\u2019s Day, and Tracy is thrilled that her son will be able to hear his family sing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to him, something that she says she took for granted with her two girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really important to me to make sure that he was able to hear us sing to him for his birthday,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Julian will receive his second cochlear implant, for his left ear, in the not-too-distant future and will start speech therapy to learn how to speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team here has been unbelievable,\u201d Tracy says. \u201cIt was a big decision to go through with this surgery, and we\u2019re so happy we did it for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0healthmatters.nyp.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleven-month-old Julian Epstein sat between his parents in a private room in the Hearing and Speech Center with a team from NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, his attention on the stuffed elephant in his hands. His care team had decorated the room with presents, a cake, and silver balloons that spelled out \u201cAce,\u201d Julian\u2019s nickname, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2307],"tags":[2315,2330,2318,2326,2308,2335,2350,2317,2338,2345,2354,2355,2347,2346,2319,2352,2316,2329,2321,2333,2324,2349,2309,2314,2336,2342,2348,2310,2339,2325,2351,2343,2313,2322,2341,2353,2337,2340,2327,2332,2328,2334,2311,2331,2312,2356,2320,2323,2344],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":659,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions\/659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talksomuch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}