If parents are severely myopic, will their children also become myopic?

When talking about myopia, have you heard these familiar lines:

"Are your parents nearsighted?" "I inherited my father's severe myopia"...

Gradually, there is another style of painting:

"No, no, for the sake of the next generation, I must find a boyfriend who is not nearsighted..."

Myopia is becoming more and more common. Is it because of heredity that makes the number of people with myopia snowball? Or is it because of environmental factors that make myopia inevitable?

Let us find out the truth about myopia today.

What factors lead to myopia?

Just as everyone thinks, children whose parents are both myopic may have a higher probability of myopia in the future. This is not without reason, because there are two main factors causing myopia, one is environmental factors, and the other is genetic factors:

Environmental factors

Environmental factors include development, eye use, diet and other aspects. Among them, the more important one is eye use habits. For example, long-term close-range eye use (including the use of electronic products, reading books, etc.), severe lack of outdoor activity time, poor indoor lighting, etc., will affect vision development, stimulate the growth of the eye axis, and eventually develop into myopia.

Genetic factors

Just like the impact of parents' height on their children, parents' myopia will also affect the probability of their children's myopia, but there is another small rule in between: the inheritance probability of high myopia is higher than that of moderate and low myopia, and moderate and low myopia is mostly caused by environmental factors.

More likely to inherit myopia

It is called "pathological myopia"

Zhao Zhaoxia, deputy director of the Aier Eye Hospital affiliated to Henan University (Henan Headquarters of Aier Eye Hospital Group), said: Myopia is divided into simple myopia and pathological myopia. Simple myopia is also called acquired myopia; while pathological myopia refers to myopia with a high degree of myopia accompanied by obvious fundus degeneration and other complications.

Pathological myopia is closely related to heredity, mainly due to single gene inheritance. That is to say, among the multiple predisposing genes, as long as one of them is inherited, it will cause pathological myopia.

For parents with severe myopia, if both parents are highly myopic, that is, the degree of myopia is (above 600 degrees), the child has a 90% chance of suffering from high myopia; if one of the parents is highly myopic (above 600 degrees), the probability of the child inheriting the disease is more than 40%.

How to slow down the progression of myopia?

The peak period of eye development for children is before the age of 3. Children need to sleep for more than 12 hours a day. Pay attention to keeping a dark room environment when sleeping, and do not sleep in a bright environment, so as not to cause the eyeball to develop too fast and easily develop myopia. In life, we should be careful not to turn on the light when children are afraid of the dark. You can place a night light at the foot of the bed or in the corner.

As they grow up, children should participate in as many outdoor activities as possible, get exposed to sunlight, and look into the distance, which is very beneficial for protecting their eyesight.

Minimize the time spent with electronic products, especially mobile electronic products such as mobile phones and tablets. If possible, avoid using electronic products before the age of three. After the age of three, it can be relaxed to no more than 30 minutes a day. Television has less impact on the eyes than mobile phones or tablets.

In terms of diet, it is recommended to have a balanced diet, eat more high-protein foods, and reduce sweets, such as candy, drinks, and ice cream.

A comprehensive eye examination should be conducted at the age of 3-4, and a refractive development file should be established. The examination items include eye refraction, eye axis, corneal curvature, etc. It can determine whether the child's refractive state is developing normally, and can also predict the child's refractive state in the future.

Protecting eyesight is often mentioned

The key is to prevent first and then control

Once myopia occurs, parents should first understand that myopia is irreversible. The most important thing to do is to correct the child's vision in time and control the progression of myopia.

The methods currently recognized by the ophthalmology community for controlling the progression of myopia include: orthokeratology lenses .

Orthokeratology is a non-surgical method of correcting myopia. It uses specially designed highly oxygen-permeable corneal contact lenses to change the curvature of the front surface of the cornea by wearing them at night, so that the patient can have clear vision the next day without wearing lenses. It is considered one of the means to control the development of myopia because it can improve visual quality, effectively eliminate blurred images in the peripheral retina, and inhibit the growth of the eye axis to a certain extent.

The Department of Optometry of Aier Eye Hospital affiliated to Henan University adheres to the most effective myopia prevention and control concept in the world, adopts scientific myopia prevention and control methods, and is committed to exploring and promoting the "prevention + inspection + control" of myopia in adolescents. It is committed to customizing myopia prevention and control plans for every adolescent and adult with visual impairment.