In a prospective study of 23 newborns with preauricular skin lesions, four (17 percent) had abnormal findings on brain-evoked response audiometry. 1 Another study of 178 newborns with isolated preauricular tags found that 23 (13 percent) had mild to moderate sensorineural hearing impairment.
Hunger is one of the most common reasons why your baby will cry (CKS 2014), especially if she's a newborn. The younger your baby is, the more likely it is that she's hungry. Your baby's stomach is small and can't hold very much. So it won't take long before it empties.
At 6 weeks of age, the average infant cries about 3.5 hours a day resulting in nursing problems, marital stress, postpartum depression, unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits, and shaken baby syndrome. The etiology of crying can range from benign to life-threatening. Fortunately, most irritable, crying children can be easily consoled and a cause readily found. When a child is not easily consoled, a selective workup based on findings from the history and physical examination is usually sufficient.