Background: Otoacoustic Emission (OAE) is frequently recorded in various body positions for infants. However, little is available about whether these deviations will produce non-pathological effects on the clinical results. The current study assessed body position's effect on infants' inner ear function.
Methods: Sixty normally hearing infants participated in an analytical cross-sectional study. Distortion-product OAEs (DPOAEs) were measured in the supine, side-lying, and upright positions. The DPOAE amplitude and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were recorded across the 1500 to 6000 Hz range.
Results: The mean DPOAE amplitude and SNR values were significantly greater in the upright position than supine and side-lying positions (p < 0.05). These differences were more pronounced in the 3000 to 6000 Hz range. The effects of gender and ear asymmetry on DPOAEs were not statistically significant.
Conclusion: Our findings suggested that the upright position could be regarded as the best position for assessing DPOAEs in infants.
Keywords: Body position; Infants; Otoacoustic emissions.
© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.