The importance of eye exam and concerns for child’s eye health: Take child’s eye health seriously

Importance of Eye Health of Your Children

If you are a parent to young children you need to take care that your children are in good health- it is not simply about their physiological wellness, but you must take good care of their optical health as well. Optical conditions and optical functioning in children are often hampered due to several eye problems and therefore it is crucial for parents to pay closer attention to the eye health of their children and to ensure that they are in good health. To understand whether your child’s eyes are functioning properly or not you need to have enough knowledge about the conditions of eyes among children. This is because if you know enough about your child’s optical health you as a parent will be able to notice whether your child is developing any kind of eye-related disorder. So, when you begin to notice the symptoms of certain types of eye problems in your children, you will be able to take your children to an experienced ophthalmologist at once so that your child receives necessary medical care when needed. This article will help you to have a clearer understanding of the various types of issues that may occur in your child’s eyes and how you can help them get rid of those issues to take proper care of their eyes. Read the article till the end and know all the necessary details about your child’s eye health and how to protect it.

All the vital details to know about your child’s eye health:

Eyes are important organs that need to be protected, especially for little children and toddlers, because their eyes can be sensitive, and they might not be careful enough themselves to protect their own eyes. So, parents need to take more care of their children’s optical health. Children usually develop their eyesight since birth and as they grow the vision develops gradually. For instance, when a child is around 1 month of age, the vision is almost 20/600 which is not a very good one. This vision capacity of a child keeps improving throughout the early days of their childhood and becomes at least 20/40 which is a few lines away from perfect vision at age 2. Vision improves to 20/30 by age 4 and then the vision develops to 20/20 when the child reaches the age group of 7 or 8. At this early age of development, the eye color in children also changes quite rapidly and continues till the age of 12 months or so. From this early on, parents must be mindful of the overall health of their eyes so that children do not develop any major eye disorders, or the early development of their eyes is not hindered. Some experts say that in certain cases the eyes of children who belong to the age group of around 5 weeks to those around 3 months of age develop their eyesight gradually and in this period of growth, the eyes may appear a little bit misaligned. But parents need not worry about this as these conditions are quite usual occurrences for small children. But what parents need to notice is that if such misalignments in the eyes of your children continue to remain for a longer period of time, for instance, for around 4 months of age, then you either need to consult an ophthalmologist to make sure this is not an eye-related issue for your child or you need your child to undergo an eye exam (which should be done preferably under the supervision of an optical expert or a healthcare professional).

Should your children get an eye exam for better eyecare and eye safety?

Many parents of young children, especially those who are concerned about the health of their children’s eyes might have this question in mind, that is, whether to get their children through an eye exam or not. Many experts claim that an eye exam is a vital step towards wellness and proper eyecare, particularly for children, because it is only through the eye exams that the ophthalmologist will be able to detect whether the child is developing any type of eye disorder or not. If any health issue is detected, then the doctor would be able to treat the eye problem as soon as possible before it starts deteriorating and damages the child’s eyes. In fact, there are many states that make it a necessity for the welfare of the children’s eye health to undergo an eye exam before beginning public school. Parents must necessarily consult and ophthalmologist and get an eye exam of your child if you notice the following symptoms in your child:

• Difficulty in paying attention.

• Problems when reading and writing.

• Your child complaining about headache or eye pain and problems (difficulties) in looking at the blackboard at school.

• Poor school performance

• Not wanting to go to school.

• Having double vision or a blurred vision

• Takin longer time than usual to complete homework or any other task.

What are the most common eye problems in children?

When you are a parent and want to take good care of your children’s eyes, it is very important for you to know the types of issues that may affect your child’s eyes. Your child may encounter these eye problems during the preschool years, and these vision problems can be detected during a routine vision screening. Some of the most common types of eye problems that affect children can be listed here as follows:

1. Refractive errors:

Refractive errors are types of eye problems that occur when the eye is incorrectly shaped, and vision is blurry. The common types of refractive errors in your eyes include:

• Farsightedness or hyperopia, a condition that involves impairment of the nearer vision and are treated with positive power in glasses.

• Near-sightedness or myopia, one of the most common eye problems among children when the vision for seeing objects kept far away is impaired and such an error in vision is corrected by a negative power in the eyeglasses.

• Astigmatism, a condition that occurs due to an abnormal curve of the front surface of the eye and is treated with glasses.

2. Amblyopia.

This is another type of eye problem in children that results in a condition in which there is poor vision in an eye that appears to be normal. It is mostly due to this reason; amblyopia is also known as lazy one in common terms. It is quite a severe condition in children that should be positively treated in early childhood or immediately at a time when the disorder is detected, because of the treatment of this disease is lingered for a long time, then it can lead to impairment in the affected eye or can cause complete vision loss when the child grows up.

3. Strabismus:

Strabismus is a condition that results due to misalignment of the eyes and thus it causes he eyes to wander. This condition is also known as the cross-eyed condition because both the eyes do not always aim at the same object. If one eye is misaligned for a long period of time without being treated, then amblyopia may develop in that eye. Once your child has this condition, you must positively consult a healthcare professional because this problem can be effectively recovered by patching the properly aligned eye and forcing the misaligned one to work harder. Curing from this eye problem may also require a surgical process or to wear specially designed glasses.

Things you need to do as a parent:

Being a parent of little children, it is important to let the children understand about their eye health. If necessary, let them go through an eye exam, for example, children should go through the vision screenings both at school and at the primary doctor’s office. A child flagged on a screening exam should have a comprehensive eye exam. Additionally, parents who suspect vision problems at home should also see their eye care professional. Once they notice the signs of possible eye problems, and the vision issues include squinting, moving objects closer, disinterest in distant objects, head tilting, or poor coordination.

Other than this, try to make your kids have a healthy and balanced diet because having a balanced diet will help your children to take in all the necessary nutrients (including vitamins, like vitamins A, C, E, minerals like zinc, lutein, omega-3 fatty acids, and other necessary nutrients) that will help you to improve the eye conditions of your children.

You must also make sure that your children have a minimum screen time, because if you do not fix a screen time for your children, it would be difficult to protect them from the worsening conditions of their optical health.