63Establishing a UNHS Programme—Sok-Bee Lim and Lourdes Mary Daniel Establishing a Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Programme

Congenital hearing impairment is one of the most common congenital problems seen today, with a worldwide incidence of 4 to 5 per 1000 babies.1,2 Out of 1000 babies, 1.7 have severe or profound hearing loss.2 By comparison, congenital hypothyroidism, which has a longer history of newborn screening, has a lower incidence of 1 in 3000 babies.3 Targeted hearing screening of babies with risk factors for hearing impairment failed to detect up to 50 % of affected babies without any identifiable risk factors.4 More than 90 % of affected children have parents with normal hearing.4 Without universal newborn screening, hearing impairment was often diagnosed very late. In Singapore, students in special schools for hearing-impaired children were diagnosed at a mean age of 20.8 months (range, 0 to 86) and received intervention at a mean age of 42.2 months (range