Purpose The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) caused an acute respiratory illness named COVID-19 and the disease spread all over the World. Fever, cough, fatigue, gastrointestinal infection symptoms form the main clinical symptoms. Pregnants and newborns form a vulnerable population and urgent measures must be addressed. Studies about the effect of COVID-19 on pregnant women, developing fetuses, and infants are limited. Various viral diseases can cause congenital or acquired, unilateral or bilateral hearing loss. Methods 37 infants whose mother was pregnant between March 2020 and December 2020 and were born after the diagnosis of COVID- 19 during pregnancy and 36 healthy infants were included in the study. Transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE), distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) and contralateral suppression of OAE (CLS OAE) tests were performed on all infants. Results According to the TEOAE results of patients and controls in the silent a statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups at 3 kHz and 4 kHz ( p < 0.05). Contralateral suppression of OAE test results of patients and controls a statistically significant difference was found in all frequencies (p < 0.05). Suppression was much more effective at all frequencies in the normal group than patient group. This difference was found to be more significant at higher frequencies (2,3 and 4 kHz) ( p < 0.001). Conclusions Our results suggest an insufficiency in medial olivocochlear efferent system in infants exposed to SARS-CoV-2 intrauterine. Cochlear functions should be examined in infants whose mothers had COVID-19.

Objectives: To determine the influence of coronavirus disease-19 )COVID-19( on cochlear tasks of children who had COVID-19 previously, and the relevance among disease seriousness and cochlear involvement by otoacoustic emissions )OAEs(. Methods:The study included 24 hospitalized children after COVID-19 diagnosis, 23 pediatrics that received outpatient treatment, and 21 children who were without COVID-19 diagnosis as the control group between June 2021 and July 2021. Transient evoked otoacoustic emission )TEOAE(, distortion product otoacoustic emission, and contrlateral suppression of otoacoustic emission measurements were carried out for each child. Symptoms of patients, the treatments they received, and the duration of hospitalization of the children in the hospitalized group were recorded. Results: The comparison of TEOAE test results under masking showed a considerable difference between Original Article3 groups at 1 kHz )p=0.033( and 4 kHz )p=0.021( frequencies )p<0.05(. Distortion product otoacoustic emission test results of hospitalized outpatient and control group showed a statistically significant difference at 2 kHz among themselves )p=0.009(. Conclusion:Our results suggest that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 may influence the medial olivocochlear system of children and have irreversible effects on the cochlear functions. Early detection of problems that may affect cochlear functions is a special critical task, especially in children, who are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of hearing and related speech problems.