Link between pregnancy and hearing loss unsubstantiated, says Ohio doctor

For years doctors have believed that pregnancy exacerbates the severity of hearing loss among women who have otosclerosis, a genetic condition. After some research, Dr. Lippy believes the myth originated during Nazi Germany in 1939 as a method of promoting genetic purity.

• For the last 66 years, doctors have been taught that pregnancy can worsen a hearing-loss disease in women.
• Dr. William Lippy, an Ohio otologist and expert on otosclerotic surgery, reported this week on the results of a study that starkly refutes the long-accepted notion among physicians that pregnant women with otosclerosis -- a degenerative disease of the ear bone -- are at heightened risk of hearing loss and even deafness.
• At the time, their speculation of an otosclerosis-pregnancy link was used by the Nazi government to promote genetic purity in the Aryan race.
• Forty seven of the patients had children and 47 had no children, and Lippy found no significant correlation between the number of children and hearing loss, nor did breastfeeding affect the amount of hearing loss.
• He said that no one knows what causes the acceleration of the disease -- hormonal changes, German measles in childhood, a vitamin D deficiency are among the causes being investigated -- but that pregnancy does not appear to be one of them.
• Lippy said in researching the origins of the association between pregnancy and hearing loss in otosclerosis, he found a report of a seminar among eight German doctors who discussed whether the two could be related.
• "Only two really believed that otosclerosis was really accelerated by pregnancy," he said, but the group were forced to refer their findings to a Nazi government agency.
• "This is a good study and will help to bring relief to some women who are anxious about pregnancy," said Dr. Jeffrey Kim, an otologist at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C.