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From: rodean@hpfcll.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Infant Screaming
Message-ID: <46300001@hpfcll.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Apr-84 11:55:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hpfcll.46300001
Posted: Wed Apr  4 11:55:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 06:00:06 EST
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division - Fort Collins, CO
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Nf-ID: #N:hpfcll:46300001:000:1103
Nf-From: hpfcll!rodean    Apr  4 08:55:00 1984


<..>

         Reprinted without permission from Family Circle:

         Deafening Infant Scream

	 After an outburst of screaming by her 11-month-old baby, a
	 young mother complained of temporary deafness. Her physician
	 husband, Dr. Bruce Bostrom, of the University of Minnesota,
	 decided to investigate. He enlisted the aid of an engineer,
	 Loren E. Swanson, to measure the sound intensity during a
	 screaming episode. The results were amazing: When readings
	 were taken about 6 inches from the child--the average distance
	 from an infant's mouth to a parent's ear when the child is
	 being held--peak readings reached 117 decibels. By comparison,
	 a pneumatic hammer at a distance of about a yard produces
	 120 decibels; a car horn at 15 feet, 100 decibels. The piercing
	 loudness of an infant's scream can have a sound level about 30
	 times louder than that of normal conversation. 
		   New England Journal of Medicine: Vol. 309, page 1194.

         I can personally attest to this. Infants can be *very* loud
	 when they want to be.

	 Bruce Rodean
	 ({ihnp4|hplabs}!hpfcla!rodean)