Most babies will have their hearing screening done while they're in hospital, and it's best to have it done before they're one month old.

If the screening wasn’t done before you went home, or it needs to be done again, contact your maternity hospital to arrange one.

If you had a home birth, ask your midwife to refer you to a screening service.

If your baby wasn’t born in Queensland, but you moved shortly after the birth, you can contact your local maternity hospital to arrange a screen. Hospitals that offer Newborn Hearing screens are listed on the page below.

The Healthy Hearing head office team can help you contact your local maternity hospital screening team, but they don’t do screening or arrange appointments.

Please call Monday to Friday between 8 am and 3:30 pm.

The hearing screen is free if your baby is eligible for Medicare. If they're not, and you’ve paid for delivery and postnatal care, the hearing screen should be included. You may need to check this with your maternity hospital.

Outpatient screening

If your baby doesn’t get screened at birth, your maternity hospital will offer you an outpatient appointment within a couple of weeks. They'll contact you by either letter, phone or text message.

If you haven't heard anything in that time, contact your maternity hospital to arrange one.

What happens at the screening?

A specialised, trained nurse will do the hearing screening. We'll talk to you about the screening and make sure you understand what will happen and get your consent.

Your baby will have to be asleep for screening. But don't worry if your baby's awake when you arrive for an appointment - we've got lots of experience helping babies settle.

We’ll put 3 small gel pads on your baby’s head and a soft earphone lightly over each ear.  We'll play soft clicking sounds into your baby’s ears and we'll record the responses. We usually know the result straight away - it will either be a Pass or Refer.

We'll record the results in your baby's Red Book (personal health record).

A Pass result

A Pass result means your baby can hear at the level they need to develop normal speech and language now. But hearing can change, so it's important to monitor your baby's hearing. You can use the checklist in the hearing screening brochure that you get at the screening.

Talk to your GP if you're worried about your baby's hearing or speech development. Your GP can check your baby and refer your baby for a hearing test if they need one.

A Refer result

A Refer result means your baby needs a follow up screen. There are a few reasons why a baby receives a refer result and can include a fluid in the ear, a blockage in the ear canal or hearing loss.

If the second screen shows a Refer result, we’ll refer your baby to an audiologist for more tests.

A small number of babies have temporary or permanent hearing loss. The level and type of hearing loss will vary with each baby.

If your baby is diagnosed with a hearing loss, the Healthy Hearing Program provides extra services to help you and your baby. These include medical investigations, support services and early intervention.

Hearing loss that can take longer to appear

Some babies pass the screen but have a risk factor for a hearing loss that takes longer to show up. The newborn hearing screener will ask you questions to find out if there is a risk factor for later hearing loss for your baby.

If there is a risk factor, your baby will be referred to your local audiology hospital. The audiology department will offer your baby a follow up hearing check. These are called early targeted surveillance and targeted surveillance and the type of check depends on your child's risk factor. You baby will have a check at either:

  • about 6 weeks after the screen - Healthy Hearing early targeted surveillance
  • when they're between 9 and 12 months old - Healthy Hearing targeted surveillance

Find your nearest maternity hospital

Information in other languages

We also have information in other languages.

Your baby's hearing screen

العربية | Arabic မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ | Burmese 简体中文 | Chinese (Simplified) 傳統的 | Chinese (Traditional) دری | Dari Thuɔŋjäŋ | Dinka Pilipino | Filipino Ελληνικά | Greek हिंदी | Hindi 日本語 | Japanese ကညီကျိၥ် | Karen ខ្មែរ | Khmer Ikirundi | Kirundi 한국어 | Korean فارس | Persian (Farsi) ਪੰਜਾਬੀ | Punjabi Samoa | Samoan Soomaali | Somali Español | Spanish Kiswahili | Swahili ไทย | Thai ردو| Urdu Tiếng Việt | Vietnamese

Your baby's audiology hearing test

العربية | Arabic မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ | Burmese 简体中文 | Chinese (Simplified) 傳統的 | Chinese (Traditional) دری | Dari Thuɔŋjäŋ | Dinka Pilipino | Filipino Ελληνικά | Greek हिंदी | Hindi 日本語 | Japanese ကညီကျိၥ် | Karen ខ្មែរ | Khmer Ikirundi | Kirundi 한국어 | Korean فارس | Persian (Farsi) ਪੰਜਾਬੀ | Punjabi Samoa | Samoan Soomaali | Somali Español | Spanish Kiswahili | Swahili ไทย | Thai ردو| Urdu Tiếng Việt | Vietnamese

Your baby's follow up hearing test

العربية | Arabic မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ | Burmese 简体中文 | Chinese (Simplified) 傳統的 | Chinese (Traditional) دری | Dari Thuɔŋjäŋ | Dinka Pilipino | Filipino Ελληνικά | Greek हिंदी | Hindi 日本語 | Japanese ကညီကျိၥ် | Karen ខ្មែរ | Khmer Ikirundi | Kirundi 한국어 | Korean فارس | Persian (Farsi)ਪੰਜਾਬੀ | Punjabi Samoa | Samoan Soomaali | Somali Español | Spanish Kiswahili | Swahili ไทย | Thai ردو| Urdu Tiếng Việt | Vietnamese

Healthy Hearing consent form

العربية | Arabic မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ | Burmese 简体中文 | Chinese (Simplified) 傳統的 | Chinese (Traditional) دری | Dari Thuɔŋjäŋ | Dinka Pilipino | Filipino Ελληνικά | Greek हिंदी | Hindi 日本語 | Japanese ကညီကျိၥ် | Karen ខ្មែរ | Khmer Ikirundi | Kirundi 한국어 | Korean فارس | Persian (Farsi)ਪੰਜਾਬੀ | Punjabi Samoa | Samoan Soomaali | Somali Español | Spanish Kiswahili | Swahili ไทย | Thai ردو| Urdu Tiếng Việt | Vietnamese

Last updated: October 2023