An eight-month-old baby hearing the sound of their parents for the first time has been captured in a heart-warming video.
Little Cohen Gorman was born deaf in March of 2020.
Mum Tamara Nevin told 7News there was no family history of hearing loss, saying: “When Cohen was born, it was this instant overwhelming feeling of love, he felt like our missing piece.
“My pregnancy with Cohen was pretty uneventful, in fact I would say that I really enjoyed being pregnant.
“All his scans showed a healthy little baby.
“We had no idea that there would be anything wrong with his hearing.”
After failing newborn hearing screenings three times, Cohen would go on to see an audiologist where they would tell the parents the surprising news.
“The week between his tests felt like forever and we would do our own tests at home, playing music into his ear, or making loud sounds to see if he reacted,” Tamara said.
“Sometimes he would react and we thought he was ok, other times he didn’t.”
“I blamed myself a lot for his hearing loss, thinking it was something I did while I was pregnant,” she added.
“My partner then had to support me and our baby and adjust to parenthood.
“It was a very different feeling than what you would expect when you welcome a baby into the world.
“And that’s hard because that’s a time we can’t get back with Cohen.”
Cohen’s diagnosis was confronting for the family, who believed their little boy would never be able to hear the voice of his parents.
“One of the first things I said to our audiologist was, ‘so our son will never hear us say we love him’.
“It was heartbreaking to think of.
“We grieved, in a sense, because we thought he would miss out on things, that he wouldn’t get to experience everything we hoped he would.”
However, hope was restored when Cohen had cochlear implants put in at eight months old.
“Cochlear implants have given Cohen the gift of sound and for that, we couldn’t be more grateful,” Tamara said.
“Now he turns to us when we call him, he sways when he hears music.
“The implants will allow him to access sound, so that with the help of listening and spoken language therapy, he will listen and talk like a ‘typical hearing’ child.”
The wonderful moment where Cohen heard his parents for the first time was recorded and shared online with the world.
Mark Fitzpatrick, Chair of First Voice – an organisation that helps children with who suffer from hearing loss – told 7NEWS he wants Australians to be more aware about the support that is available to babies with hearing conditions.
“Most critically, 84 per cent of Australians don’t know where to turn to for support if their child is born with or develops hearing loss.
“The possibilities for deaf children are endless.
“With early identification, excellent technology, and world-leading therapy and support in the early stages of life (and beyond), anything is possible for these children.
“99.9 per cent of all Australians have an oral language, despite one in six Australians having a hearing loss.
“Supporting children to develop their own speech early in life opens up all kinds of possibilities for them later in life, including the way they want to communicate.
“Most importantly, it will provide them the opportunity to engage in the community that they want in the way they want to.”
This article originally appeared on Over60.