Ear Molding for Infants

[Dr. Gopi Shah]:
Yes. Okay. The babies in your clinic, which babies are good candidates for your molding and which babies would you say, "You know what, this is something that we can observe. It should get better with time"?

[Dr. Jason Qian]:
I think having one of the obvious, more named auricular anomalies are good candidates. Then, a lot of times, it comes down to the parent motivation. I do now get some patients in my clinic where the pediatrician sent them just because they were like, "The helical rim looks a little bit flat. I think you should get it checked out." The parents aren't really that bothered by it. If the parents aren't bothered, and it is pretty subtle to me because newborn ears are a little bit weird looking, unless it's one of those really obvious ones, I tend to just be really realistic. It's like, "I think this isn't something we can have a huge improvement on." If the parents aren't also super motivated, then we're good to-- They're like, "I just want to be here to have it checked out. Just want to be reassured. If you don't think there's an issue, we don't have an issue," those I won't mold.