According to Richard M. Rosenfeld’s “A Parent’s Guide to Ear Tubes,” ear tube surgery is performed on approximately 600,000 children in the United States per year, which makes it one of the leading surgeries for children. When a child reaches kindergarten age, seven out of every 100 children have had ear tube surgery. Whether ear tubes are suitable for your toddler depends on a shared decision made by you, your partner and your child’s doctor.
Middle Ear Infection
When viruses or bacteria penetrate the middle ear via the Eustachian tube, it may result in an infection, also known as “otitis media.” This condition typically occurs when your toddler has a respiratory infection or a cold. Fluids or pus accumulate in the middle ear, which puts pressure on the ear drum and stops it from vibrating. In most cases, these fluids disappear when the ear infection ends. In other cases, the fluids can remain for months, affecting the child’s hearing and speech development and causing pain.
Symptoms
If your toddler exhibits irritability, fever, fluid leaking from his ear, a change in appetite or sleeping habits, hearing loss or is rubbing or pulling his ear from pain, call your doctor. The exam may reveal he is suffering from a bacterial infection. Your doctor may wait to see if your child’s immune system fights off the infection. If symptoms, such as pain and fever, persist for more than two days, your doctor may put your child on antibiotics. If the antibiotics don’t clear the infection and the fluids don’t drain from your child’s ear for an extended period of time, you may want to elect ear tube surgery.
Surgery
Ear tubes are small plastic bits that are laid across the ear drum, according to Christopher M. Johnson’s “How Your Child Heals: An Inside Look at Common Childhood Ailments.” They enable air to travel between the middle ear and the outside, ventilating the region behind the ear drum and maintaining pressure to atmospheric pressure. In essence, they provide an auditory tube bypass. Fluid can be expelled, and air can enter the middle ear. This enables trapped fluids to drain by moving down the auditory tube.
Risks
Ear tubes may fall out, in some cases, after they have just been placed in the child’s ear. Because they allow air into the middle ear, ear tubes leave the middle ear vulnerable to germs present in the ear canal. Ear tube surgery requires the use of an anesthetic, which poses additional risks, notes Johnson. While ear tubes will decrease the number of acute ear infections, they are not an all-encompassing cure for middle ear infections. According to KidsHealth, about 25 percent of children under 2 years old who undergo ear tube surgery will require ear tubes again.
