A four year old girl in Hicksville, NY has deafened her mother in one ear just by giving her a kiss.
The unnamed woman was given what is described as a “long sucking kiss” in her ear by her daughter.
“I couldn’t push her away. I was almost frozen. When she stopped, and the kiss ended, I realized I had no hearing in that ear. Nothing,” The woman told doctors.
“I got very upset and yelled for my husband, ‘I can’t hear out of this ear! I can’t hear!,’”
After months of getting nowhere the woman’s doctor finally transferred her to hearing expert Professor Levi Reiter, Chair of Audiology at Hofstra University.
Reiter discovered that the suction power from the child’s “long sucking kiss” had pulled the woman’s eardrum down the ear canal and torn the tiny ligaments and nerves that connect the eardrum to the ear.
The woman may regain her hearing over time as the damage heals.
Reiter is to publish his findings in the National Hearing Journal, and hopes to warn the public that kissing ears, particularly those of young and newborn children, is potentially very dangerous.
