There are many causes of hearing loss, both intrinsic and extrinsic, from noise exposure, naturally growing older, some health conditions, medications, and genetics. This list is certainly not exhaustive! However, a new study from Lau et al. (2025) revealed an unusual factor associated with hearing loss—pregnancy.
The authors conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 5,269 women aged 20 years and older. The number of pregnancies and use of birth control pills was obtained via self-reported questionnaires. For this study, hearing loss was defined as a pure-tone average ≥ 25 dB HL at 500, 1K, 2K, and 4K Hz in the better-hearing ear.
Survey results found 9.81 percent of women indicated hearing loss. Additional analyses revealed that the number of pregnancies was significantly associated with hearing loss, and the use of birth control pills was associated with lower odds of hearing loss.
Reference
Lai, H., Wu, J., Chen, Z., Gao, M., & Yang, H. (2025). Association between the number of pregnancies and hearing loss: NHANES 1999–2018. BMC Public Health, 25, 1891
Related Posts
Recent Posts
Prevalence of Depression in Teenagers and Adults in the United States
Audiologists may see patients who present with comorbid health conditions, including depression. Brody and Hughes (2025) used data from the August 2021–August 2023 National Health…
Take Action: Support the Medicare Audiology Access Improvement Act
As Congress spends this week working in their home districts, the Academy encourages members to take action to support the introduction of the Medicare Audiology…
A Virtual Reality System for Delivery of Military-Specific Vestibular Rehabilitation After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: The Praxis Study Protocol
In an article by Alroumi et al. (2025), treatment of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) through the use of virtual reality (VR) system was investigated….