A simple cheek swab could save babies from permanent and profound deafness in the world’s first emergency genetic bedside test, which is being trialled on the NHS.

The swab means that nurses can identify whether a premature baby would be genetically predisposed to being left deaf after treatment with gentamicin, a life-saving antibiotic used to treat 90,000 newborns a year. Guidelines say a baby should have gentamicin administered within an hour, though researchers have known for 25 years that the antibiotic could lead to deafness caused by a genetic variant which affects 1 in 500 people. Testing for it has traditionally taken days.

But now, in just 20 minutes a nurse working alone can establish, by placing cells from a baby’s cheek swab into a into a PC-sized molecular-diagnostic bedside machine, whether their infant patient has the genetic variant which rules out using gentamicin – and if so to prescribe an alternative drug instead.

The test, which already has Health Research Authority, CE and ethical approval, has just started trials in neonatal intensive care units at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Used across the NHS, it could save more than 180 babies a year from going deaf as a result of gentamicin.

Bill Newman, professor of Translational Genomic Medicine at the University of Manchester and consultant at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, who is leading the trial, says that the technology could be used in future to identify how patients are affected by other drugs.

Mr Newman – whose team includes the developers of the testing equipment genedrive plc and parents of children treated in NICUs – said: “Successful implementation of the gentamicin test will be a first in the integration of a rapid decision-making, genetic-based diagnostic in the UK NHS. It opens the door to getting much better outcomes for a number of other diseases too now that the test is out there.”

In addition to saving families from the emotional anguish of a diagnosis of profound deafness, the success of the Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing (PALoH) study will save the NHS an estimated £5m every year (including the cost of the test) in cochlear implantations and other hospital costs, according to health economists making up part of the team.

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Show all 20 1 /20 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Michelle Obama Michelle Obama revealed in 2018 that both of her daughters were conceived via IVF after the lawyer had suffered an earlier miscarriage.

"I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them," Obama said during an interview with Good Morning America.

"We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken.” 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan In 2015, Priscilla Chan and husband Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, announced that they were expecting a baby girl following three miscarriages

."You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook.

“Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you, as if you’re defective or did something to cause this.

“In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance and it gives us hope.” Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Gwyneth Paltrow In 2013, Gwyneth Paltrow revealed she lost her third pregnancy, and that the miscarriage threatened her life.

“My children ask me to have a baby all the time," she told You Magazine.

“And you never know, I could squeeze one more in. I am missing my third. I’m thinking about it. But I had a really bad experience when I was pregnant with my third. It didn’t work out and I nearly died." Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Beyonce Beyonce spoke publicly about the miscarriage she suffered before becoming pregnant with Blue Ivy in her 2013 HBO special, "Life is But a Dream." The singer described her experience as "the saddest thing" she had ever experienced.

“About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time and I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life," Beyonce said.

I picked out names, I envisioned what my child would look like… I was feeling very maternal. I flew back to New York to get my check up, and no heartbeat.

I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I’ve ever written in my life called Heartbeat." Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Hilaria and Alec Baldwin In April 2019, Hilaira Baldwin revealed in an Instagram post that she was in the process of experiencing a miscarriage.

Explaining why she decided to share her story on social media, Baldwin later said: "I want women who have gone through this to know: there is nothing wrong with you.

"You are not alone. I know this didn't happen because I did something wrong. This is just nature." Getty Images for Turner 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness In 2012, Hugh Jackman opened up about the infertility struggles he and his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, had experienced.

"It is a difficult time. The miscarriage thing, apparently it happens to one in three pregnancies, but it's very, very rarely talked about.... It's almost secretive," Jackman said.

"But it's a good thing to talk about. It's more common and it's tough, there's a grieving process you have to go through." Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Pink The singer said on a 2010 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that she was reluctant to share about being pregnant with her daughter Willow because of a previous miscarriage.

"I was just really nervous, and I have had a miscarriage before," she said.

She eventually wrote the song "Beam Me Up" about her experience, which includes the lyrics "Just beam me up, give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it. I'd probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face." Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Lindsay Lohan In March 2014, Lindsay Lohan revealed that a painful miscarriage was the reason she missed some filming for her docuseries, Lindsay.

"No one knows this…I had a miscarriage for those two weeks that I took off,” Lohan said.

“I couldn’t move. I was sick. And mentally that messes with you. Watching this series, I just know how I felt at that moment and I can relate to that girl, which sounds kind of crazy. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is really sad. Who’s helping her?’” (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for MTV) 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Lily Allen Lily Allen has spoken candidly about having a miscarriage in 2008 and a stillbirth, losing a baby boy at six months pregnant in 2010.

“It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy,” she said of the stillbirth.

“I have dealt with it, you know, as being at one with it. But it’s not something that you get over. I held my child and it was really horrific and painful, one of the hardest things that can happen to a person.” IBL/REX 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Celine Dion Before welcoming twin sons via IVF, Dion had a miscarriage.

Speaking of the experience, she said: “They said that I was pregnant and a couple of days after my husband and I were not pregnant again. We didn’t want to feel like we were playing yo-yo. But we did have a miscarriage…I never gave up.

"But I can tell you that it was physically and emotionally exhausting." Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Nicole Kidman While married to Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman experienced complications in two pregnancies. The first was an ectopic pregnancy at 23, while the second was a miscarriage and occurred about a decade later.

In an interview with Marie Claire, she said: "I had a miscarriage at the end of my marriage, but I had an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of my marriage. It was incredibly traumatic for me." Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Demi Moore In her memoir, Inside Out, Demi Moore recalled how she became pregnant not long after she started dating Ashton Kutcher in 2003.

Speaking of the loss in an interview with Good Morning America, Moore said: "You could see combination of his dread and it shifting then immediately in to matter of fact, practical, information. Because it was unquestionable. There was no heartbeat." Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Kirstie Alley Opening up about the emotional toll of her miscarriage, Kirstie Alley said: "When the baby was gone, I just didn’t really get over it. Neither did my body. I so thoroughly convinced my body that it was still pregnant after nine months that I had milk coming from my breasts.

I was still grieving, and I had just been told it was very possible I would never be able to have children.” Reuters 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Tana and Gordon Ramsay Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and wife Tana have four children—but in 2016 they shared that Tana miscarried five months into her fifth pregnancy.

"We had a devastating weekend as Tana has sadly miscarried our son at five months," Ramsay wrote on Facebook alongside a photo of Tana after she finished an Ironman triathlon.

"We're together healing as a family, but we want to thank everyone again for all your amazing support and well wishes." PA 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Sharon Stone In 2012, Sharon Stone revealed that she has suffered three second-trimester pregnancy losses.

"The last time I lost the baby, I went into 36 hours of labour," she recalled. "While we were at the hospital, our adoption attorney called."

Stone went on to adopt three sons, Roan, Quinn and Laird.

The actor said she was unable to have children due to an autoimmune condition that made it difficult for her to carry a pregnancy to full-term. Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Gabrielle Union In 2018, Gabrielle Union announced that she and husband Dwayne Wade had welcomed their first child together, a baby girl, via a surrogate.

The star previously revealed she had suffered at least eight miscarriages and three years of failed IVF treatments.

In an interview with Women’s Health, the actor said that using a surrogate to carry her child made her feel like “surrendering to failure”.

“There’s nothing more that I wanted than to cook my own baby,” Union said. “The idea of [using a surrogate] felt like surrendering to failure.” Getty Images 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Nicola Sturgeon Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon decided to speak about her pain at miscarrying a baby in 2011 in the hope of challenging some of the “assumptions and judgments” made about women who do not have children.

The SNP leader said she was in the early stages of her pregnancy and preparing to share the news when the miscarriage occurred.

“Sometimes, for whatever reason, having a baby just doesn't happen – no matter how much we might want it to,” Sturgeon said.

“Judgements and assumptions shouldn't be made about what are personal choices and experiences.” Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Courteney Cox Courteney Cox recently admitted that it was “terrible having to be funny” while filming Friends after suffering a miscarriage.

Speaking in an interview, the actor explained: “I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel (played by Jennifer Aniston) was giving birth.

“It was like that same time. Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny.”

After marring David Arquette in 1999, Cox had a total of seven miscarriages caused by anti-bodies that attacked the foetus.

After two rounds of IVF she welcomed her daughter Coco in 2004. Getty 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Mariah Carey After announcing that she was pregnancy in 2010, Mariah Carey revealed that her first pregnancy with Nick Cannon ended in miscarriage.

'Unfortunately that was a time where [the doctor] said, "I'm sorry but the pregnancy is unsuccessful",” Carey said.

"It kind of shook us both and took us to a place that was really dark and difficult.” Rex Features 20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss Leandra Medine In 2016, style blogger Leandra Medine, aka Man Repeller, announced that she suffered a miscarriage following IVF.

Speaking about the loss on her website, Medine said: “It felt impossible to deal with emotionally, but even harder to try and suppress, which I so wanted to.

“Over-sharer that I am, though, if anyone is to ask how I’m doing I can’t help but tell them, ‘I lost a baby last week, but it’s going to be okay.’ Almost as if it’s a badge of honor: I can get pregnant, too, you know.” Getty Images

The Genedrive test costs around £60 per baby at the moment and was developed by the Manchester-based medical equipment company genedrive plc, in collaboration with Mr Newman’s team. The development research took place at Manchester Biomedical Research Centre with £900,000 in funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and support from the charity Action on Hearing Loss.

Mr Newman is convinced that the successful implementation of this trial will open the door to early detection of more common conditions. His team is already working with genedrive plc on a similar rapid bedside test for stroke patients – to detect the one in 10 patients whose DNA makes them unable to metabolise clopidogrel, the common anti-platelet medication, and therefore have significantly worse outcomes.

Models suggest similar tests could prevent several thousand of the 100,000 strokes suffered by people each year in the UK. It also opens up the possibility of using pharmacogenetics testing more widely by using biomarkers to target treatments more appropriately.

Mr Newman said: “It raises the long term possibility of developing a series of tests which might be given to everyone at the age of maybe 40 or 50 (when people start to develop health problems) to look at various genes that we know to be linked to specific drug outcomes. Health passports linked to electronic patient records might then be developed that contain information such as ‘codeine does not work for this patient’.”

If the PALoH trial is successful, it could be rolled out across the NHS within a year, under National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidance. There is also interest in the bedside test from Australia, the USA, Israel and the Netherlands.

Health secretary Matt Hancock recently revealed ambitious plans for the NHS to introduce a form of DNA testing called “whole exome sequencing” for a range of inherited conditions at birth, to reduce their impact. It has currently been tried on 80 babies, and can provide a diagnosis in days rather than weeks.

Gentamacin-induced deafness: Darren’s story

When Darren Emson woke up in intensive care in Warrington and Halton hospital in 2002 after three weeks in a coma, he realised he had lost his hearing and could neither speak nor even lift up a pen.

‘The most heartbreaking thing for me when I became deaf was the loss of my music as I was a serious vinyl junkie,’ says Darren Emson

“I felt trapped inside myself,” says Mr Emson, now 49 and able to hear with a cochlear implant. He later learned that he had suffered a road accident in which he had escaped with minor injuries, only to develop a life-threatening abdominal infection and multiple organ failure as a result of seat belt injuries. As his life hung in the balance, the medical team fighting to save him gave him gentamicin, not knowing that his DNA had the variant which meant it would destroy his hearing.

“Gentamicin at the time was possibly the last resort,” he insists. “My parents did not have the time to contemplate the treatment’s outcomes. It kept me alive and that was their only aim and probably the only aim of all those people in ICU and Warrington Hospital who worked arduously and so daringly to keep me alive.”

After 10 months, several cardiac arrests and multiple operations, Mr Emson (a welder until his accident) left hospital in a wheelchair at half his normal weight and with a range of abdominal problems in addition to his deafness.

“Prognosis was not good for the amount of recovery I would make with walking and independence but I was determined not to let this beat me,” says Mr Emson. “The most heartbreaking thing for me when I became deaf was the loss of my music as I was a serious vinyl junkie. I also felt very isolated but I was alive.”

After a one-year studentship with The Deaf Trust to “learn to be deaf”, he adopted British Sign Language as a second language, which opened the door to a new deaf culture and eventually to his current job at Warrington and Vale Royal College providing classroom support for learners with additional needs. He was also supported by the trust to have a cochlear implant fitted in his left ear.