Microtia "Small Ear"

For people with microtia, it's a big deal, but the average American person doesn't know what microtia is. In fact, if you said something about microtia to a friend of family member right now, you would likely get the response, "What is Microtia?" To answer that question, "What is microtia", the simple answer is that microtia is a problem with the ear which affects hearing and can therefor change the perspective of a child with microtia. Microtia is not a disease or an ear infection, it is an ear deformity. A common birth defect, microtia literally means "small ear", and it is a deformity which affect the outer ear. Children are born with microtia, and then have to deal with that deformity or be asked questions about why their ear is shaped like that for many years. As with many deformities, especially those which happen during natural, common birth, there are varying degrees of severity of microtia. In mild cases, a child with microtia will have a normal looking ear that will just be very small in comparison to their face. However, for some children the ear deformity of microtia is so severe that their ear is not even recognizable as an ear. Besides being hard to deal with for a child, microtia is a real problem which can affect health. The deformity of the external ear makes hearing harder, and it can make the ear less able to receive sound. Even though the internal ear may be perfectly healthy, microtia affects the outer ear so severely that the external ear may be unable to capture sound correctly, or distort it. If microtia is only present in one ear it can also cause the child balance and orientation problems. Another affect of microtia doesn't have to do with health but with other uses of the external ear. A child with microtia may be unable to wear glasses or use headphones. This affect of microtia can go from being merely annoying, to very uncomfortable, to being a real problem if glasses are needed. The smallness of the ear has other serious health affects as well, however. Microtia can affect how the jaw moves. This may not seem like a big deal, but children with very severe microtia develop long term problems with being unable to move their faces correctly to speak and eat correctly because of their ear deformity. Microtia can also affect blood flow when the ear deformity is severe enough. When Microtia gets this bad, surgery is often considered. The ear reshaping surgery performed to correct microtia should be done by a plastic surgeon who is used to working with the face, and preferably with ear microtia specifically. In order to fix microtia, the surgery involves reshaping and resizing the external ear. This is done using existing cartilage and bone from other areas of the body or synthetic materials. Microtia surgery is most often performed in severe cases where the microtia of the ear threatens the health of the child, or causes extreme hearing loss. However, there is also a good number of patients who have their microtia corrected for asthetic reasons, which can also boost confidence and help children feel like they fit in more at school. The choice to get Microtia ear reshaping surgery is one that should be considered as a family.

As with many deformities, especially those which happen during natural, common birth, there are varying degrees of severity of microtia. In mild cases, a child with microtia will have a normal looking.... Learn more at Microtia and ear deformity