Hearing is one of the most important sense organs for man. Hearing loss is often associated with delayed speech and language development in young children. Early identification and intervention improves the chance a child gets to lesser delays in development and improving the overall quality of life. To find out the prevalence of hearing loss in neonates in the rural taluka of Maval, Pune, Maharashtra, India. Prospective Non Randomized Clinical Study. The study was carried out between April 2012 and April 2015. A total of 8192 babies were screened across various centers around the Maval area. The babies who had some high risk factors were 1683 in number and babies who had no high risk factors i.e. well babies were 6509. In our study, the overall prevalence of hearing loss in neonates in Maval taluka of Maharashtra was found to be 3.54 per 1000 live births, in normal born neonates (well babies) was 1.689 per 1000 births, in high risk babies was 10.69 per 1000 high risk births. The prevalence of low birth weight neonates, hyperbilirubinemia neonates and neonates with craniofacial abnormalities developing hearing impairment was found to be 5.9, 3.56 and 1.18 per 1000 high risk births respectively. India is the second most populated country in the world with nearly a fifth of the world's population. There is a need for the universal neonatal screening for deafness for earlier detection of deafness and rehabilitation. : Level IV.

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Facial nerve is the main motor supply to the part of facial skeleton system responsible for expressions. The reported rate of iatrogenic injury to the facial nerve in primary mastoid surgeries was 0.6% to 3.7%. Temporal bone is one of the most complex anatomical parts of human body. A variety of facial nerve courses has been described in literature. Normally, horizontal segment of the facial nerve traverses from geniculate ganglion to second genu which is usually situated medial and inferior to lateral semicircular canal. From here it passes posteriorly and laterally along the medial wall of the middle ear. Mastoid or vertical segment extends from the second genu to stylomastoid foramen deep to tympano-mastoid suture line from where the nerve exits out of the temporal bone. During our endoscopic dissection we encountered a grossly anomalous course of facial nerve in which after turning at second genu, the nerve curves posteriorly and lies in the floor of mastoid cavity and traverse’s its whole length of mastoid and instead of moving out of foramen it travels towards sinus plate and then takes another (3rd) turn to travel anteriorly towards the tip of mastoid from where it finally exits.