7-month-old OC girl, among youngest to receive cochlear implants, embarks on journey to hear

ANAHEIM HILLS, Calif. -- Cochlear implants to help those with profound hearing loss have been around for decades, but patients are getting younger and younger. One Anaheim Hills infant is one of the youngest to receive these devices.

The procedure marks the beginning of 7-month-old Zara Ahmed's journey with sound.

A week ago, doctors at Providence Saint John's Health Center Pacific Neuroscience Center surgically embedded cochlear implants. Now, it's being activated for the first time.

"It's not like Lasik eye surgery where you see the first day. With the cochlear implant, we are replacing the sensory system. With the cochlear implant, we are replacing the sensory system with an electrode array," said Dr. Rebecca Lewis, audiology director of the cochlear implant program.

Zara is hearing static, beeps and robotic sounds that will eventually take shape.

"Children have so much neural plasticity in their brain. They're able to adapt and learn what they're hearing really well," she said.

Seeing his daughter's reaction to the sensation of hearing left Haroon Ahmed without words.

"Your emotions are running high and I just couldn't think of anything or do anything. I was frozen," he said.

When Zara was born, she didn't pass her newborn hearing test.

It would take three audiologists and several tests to figure out exactly what was going on.

Doctors concluded that she was born with profound sensorineural hearing loss. It occurs when the cochlea, auditory nerve, or auditory center is damaged.

After hearing aids didn't work for her daughter, Mursal Ahmed found Lewis and neurotologist Dr Courtney Voelker and Lewis.

"I came across a video on YouTube and it was the doctors doing an activation on a cochlear implant on a six-month-old," said Ahmed.

In 2020, the FDA approved cochlear implants in children as young as nine months old. At seven months, Zara is one of a handful who received one earlier.

"If you meet kids who were implanted young, you would not know that they have cochlear implants. They do fantastic," said Lewis.

Doctors expect Zara will meet all her language milestones.

"Whatever she decides to do. Honestly, if she wants to hear and speak in that sense we will support her. If she wants to sign when she gets older, then that's her decision, then we will support that," said Mursal Ahmed.

"As far as what I want for her, I just want her to be happy. Whatever it is that makes her happy," said Haroon Ahmed.