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How well does your baby see? It may be difficult to know how well a child sees or should see early in life.  Since infants and young children are unable to tell us about visual difficulties, parents must watch a child’s behaviour for early indicators of vision problems.  Reaching visual milestones on time is essential to a child’s general development and school readiness, as well as life-long vision skills.

In children, the visual development is a continuous process.  Their visual capacity grows with time.

 

Following is a guideline for visual development for children till 12 months old:

Age	Visual Response
Newborn	Light perception, pupil reacts
1-4 weeks	Looks towards face, closes eyes to bright lights
4-8 weeks	Eye contact with mother, follows slow moving object, no objection to covering either eye
8-12 weeks	Fixates and follows bright color objects
3-6 months	Follow objects readily, smiles at smiling faces, reaches towards objects
6-12 months	Looks across room, watches person come in door, recognizes faces, hand eye coordination begins

 Source: http://www.eyes4kids.com/eye-facts-milestone

 

Parents are advised to consult eye specialist immediately if they sense some trouble in their child eyes. This is because, eyes problem when detected early can be corrected. But when too late; can lead to permanent vision problem and will stick to them for the rest of their life.

Following are some of the major eye vision problem among children:

 

1. Possible Refractive Error (Child needs glass)

If your school going child shows one of the following symptoms, he/she may need spectacles so, consult an eye doctor.

• Moves closer to TV to watch it: Despite of our regular warning, if your kid still watches TV from close, it may be a symptom of possible refractive error. Most parents mistake this symptoms with their kids not obeying them. But the fact could be that your child cannot see the TV clearly from distance so he watches from close. If this is the scenario at your home, do take an advice from the eye specialist. Better late than sorry.
• Misses lines or words of book while reading
• Frequently break the pencil tips
• Difficult to see in dim light or night time
• Squeeze eye to see letters in black board

If spectacles are not given in time, it may lead to Lazy eye in future, which is very difficult to treat.

 

2. Squint of eye:

In old days squint eye is considered as good luck, but make no mistake today as it is not the case. In child up to 3 years old, this could be due to eye cancer. So do an eye consultation as early as possible once you notice that eye of your baby is not straight. In some cases, wearing spectacles in early age may correct the squint and if not used in early stage, the vision may be damaged permanently. So again it is advised to see an eye consultant as soon as you discover the squint.

 

3. White Reflex in centre of black part of eye( Pupil)

Use a simple torch light and see the centre of black part of each eye of your baby. Normally light shadow should be visible in centre of each pupil .If the centre is white reflex (as shown in pictures below) consult your eye doctor immediately. It may be due to birth cataract or eye cancer which needs urgent treatment to save your child’s vision

 

 

The only solution to these above mentioned vision problem is the early detection and early treatment of the problem. So if you feel anything wrong with your child eyes, then it is advised to see an eye consultant without any delay.

 

By

Dr. Gyanendra Lamichhane,

MD (Ophthalmology)
Phaco and Medical Retina Specialist ( Japan)
Associate Professor,NAMS
Academic Chief 
Lumbini Eye Institute
Bhairahawa, Nepal