Hearing miracle for baby
BORN into a silent world, little Zelmari Maree heard the sound of her parents’ voices for the very first time at the age of nine months after undergoing successful cochlear implantation that has changed the course of her development forever.
Now, just a few months later, she is a chatty baby girl who demonstrates utter delight in responding to the busy noises that fill the new and engaging world around her.
According to Dr Jacobus Terblanche, an ear, nose and throat surgeon practising at Netcare Kuils River Hospital, a cochlear implant is a small electronic device which helps deaf or severely hard of hearing people recognise sound by working around the damaged part of the inner ear so that sound signals can reach the brain.
Zelmari’s mother, Elsje Maree, said that although the family did not know it at the time, Zelmari – who was perfectly healthy in every other way – was born without the ability to hear.
“Within her first few weeks of life, I started noticing that she seemed unaware of noise and I began to suspect there was a problem with her hearing. After taking her for screening at six weeks she was diagnosed with total hearing loss,” she said.
Maree said this was heartbreaking. “I never thought anything like that could happen to us. While it was recommended that Zelmari would be a good candidate for a cochlear implant, it was financially out of our reach.”
However, the family’s fortunes changed when Dr Louis Hofmeyr, an ear, nose and throat specialist otologist, took a special interest in Zelmari’s case.
Hofmeyr practises at the Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital and specialises in cochlear implants and implantable hearing devices.
He and Terblanche form part of the team at Cape Hearing Implants, a non-profit organisation that raises funds to support patients in need of implantable hearing solutions.
After discussing the options with the Maree family, it was agreed that a cochlear implant was the best option.
At the age of nine months, Terblanche did the implantation at Netcare Kuils River Hospital, which assisted with certain hospital costs.
“Thanks to the efforts of this selfless team and the incredible outpouring of support from the community, we were afforded the opportunity to have this life-changing procedure for Zelmari. Since then she has developed astonishingly well.
“She can say ‘mama’, she almost says ‘ouma’ and she makes it very clear when she doesn’t want something with a firm ‘no’,” the child’s mother said.