A heartwarming video has emerged of a baby hearing his parents' voices for the first time.

The footage, captured last week in Portland, OR, USA, shows Ethan smiling when he hears his parents calling his name after he received a cochlear implant.

Ethan contracted Haemophilus during the pregnancy, a rare bacteria usually paired with meningitis and sepsis. He had to undertake a very invasive antibiotics treatment that caused his hearing to impair.

''The 4 weeks after his birth was touch and go. He was on a ventilator, hooked up with monitors, IVs, and more, fully sedated, pumped with medications and antibiotics then fluids when he became septic, in the hopes it would save his life,'' his mother wrote online.

''His chances for pulling through were very low. My husband and I were only able to see him once a day for an hour or two.''

''Finally he started getting better, making leaps and bounds in a weeks time and in February we were able to bring him home,'' she continued.

''The next couple of months were filled with specialists and doctors as he suffered from liver failure, compromised immune system, possible brain damage and was 98% deaf from antibiotics.''

''Finally in January he got the cochlear implant and got to hear for the first time,'' she added.

++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN EDITED++