Popular Science | Eye care knowledge for children aged 0-6 (I)

0 to 6 years old is a critical period for the development of children's eyes and visual functions. The visual development before the age of 6 determines the visual quality of children throughout their lives. So, how do the eyes and visual functions of babies develop after they are born? How can parents identify common eye diseases and vision abnormalities in children? Let's learn together~

1. How do the baby’s eyes and visual functions develop after birth?

After the baby is born, the eyes and visual functions gradually develop and mature. 0-6 years old is the critical period for the development of eye structure and visual function.

Newborns only have light perception when they are born, and their vision gradually develops after birth. Generally speaking, the vision of a 1-year-old child can reach 0.2, 2-year-olds can reach 0.4 or above, 3-year-olds can reach 0.5 or above, 4-year-olds can reach 0.6 or above, and 5-year-olds and above can reach 0.8 or above. In addition, stereoscopic vision is the ability to distinguish the distance and convexity of objects. Children's stereoscopic vision also develops gradually and is basically mature at around 5 to 6 years old.

When babies are born, their eyeballs are small and their eye axes are short. At this time, both eyes are in a state of physiological hyperopia. As they grow and develop, their eyeballs gradually grow, their eye axes gradually lengthen, and physiological hyperopia gradually decreases and tends to emmetropia. After emmetropia, if the eyeballs continue to grow and the eye axes lengthen too much, they will develop into myopia.

2. How do parents identify common eye diseases and vision abnormalities in children?

Parents should pay attention to observe and identify the danger signs of children's eye diseases in daily life, and seek medical attention promptly if the following situations occur.

1. Red eyes, continuous tearing, and excessive secretions may be suspected to be conjunctivitis or neonatal dacryocystitis.

2. If you find that your baby's pupil area is white, you should be highly alert, indicating suspected congenital cataracts, retinoblastoma and other fundus diseases. You must go to the eye department for examination as soon as possible.

3. Inability to track vision, viewing objects too close, squinting, frequent eye rubbing, photophobia, or obvious inconsistency in the size of the two eyes indicate suspected vision abnormalities or eye diseases.

4. Eye deviation and always tilting the head to see things indicate suspected strabismus. Nystagmus, that is, the involuntary rhythmic movement of the eyeballs, indicates suspected poor vision and should be treated as soon as possible.

3. Why should children have regular eye examinations?

For children under 6 years old, many eye diseases that affect visual development are hidden and difficult to detect by parents' observation alone. First, these eye diseases do not show any abnormal appearance. Second, children are too young to express eye problems, or one eye has abnormal vision while the other eye is normal, which is not easy to detect. Third, most of these eye diseases exist since childhood, and babies have never had the experience of seeing clearly, so they do not know that the world they see is not clear, and they will not show signs of not seeing clearly. Only through eye appearance examination or special ophthalmic equipment examination can children's eye abnormalities be discovered in an objective way.

Children's vision develops gradually from birth. Children of different ages need to pay attention to different eye diseases, and each age group has its own eye care focus. Regular screening should be done from the moment the baby is born.

Premature infants and low-birth-weight infants are prone to retinopathy of prematurity, which can cause blindness. Fundus screening should be done in a timely manner to detect and treat the disease early. Congenital cataracts and congenital glaucoma should be screened during infancy. Severe cataracts have a great impact on visual development and should be treated early, otherwise vision will be difficult to recover. In early childhood and preschool, special attention should be paid to three common childhood eye diseases: strabismus, amblyopia, and refractive errors. These eye diseases also have a great impact on children's visual development and need to be detected and treated early.

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