Pregnancy May Be an Overlooked Factor in Hearing Loss

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