If I told you that there is a disease that causes thirty thousand newborn babies to go blind every year, and more importantly, there is a cure for this disease...
Yes, you heard it right. Unfortunately, it is such a disease that it cannot be diagnosed in time. And because they cannot access treatment, thirty thousand of our children continue to live blind every year around the world.
What is the name of this disease?
The name of this treacherous disease is ROP!!!
>So what does ROP or also known as Retinopathy of Prematurity mean?
In daily use, ROP, which consists of the initials of the English name of the disease (retinopathy of prematurity), is a serious condition that occurs in babies born prematurely before the 37th week of gestation and can result in blindness. It is an eye disease.
Good, but why is it important for us?
According to the 2018 data of the Turkish Statistical Institute, approximately 1,300,000 (one million three hundred thousand) live births occur in our country every year, and approximately 11.2% of them are 150,000 (one hundred and fifty thousand) of them are born before 37 weeks for various reasons. Approximately 10% of these premature births, that is, 15,000 (fifteen thousand), need special treatment and care due to very low gestational age and birth weight. In neonatal intensive care units, people are trying to survive with great efforts and sacrifices, and unfortunately, they face the threat of blindness.
In other words, 15,000 babies are born every year, who face the risk of blindness before they are even placed in their mother's arms and before they can go to their warm nest. These babies are born. Maybe one of them is yours, maybe your sibling's or relative's, maybe your colleague's, maybe even your daughter's or maybe your son's baby...
Isn't the possibility of that innocent baby that you can't bear to look at and whose smell you can't get enough of, going blind important enough?
If you think it is important, let's get to know this disease a little more...
During the pregnancy, which normally lasts 40 (+/- 2) weeks, premature birth occurs while the development of the eye continues in parallel with the development of the baby in the mother's womb. Due to this, this development is interrupted and the eye vessels try to complete their development in the outside world, for which they are not yet ready.
In this process, some babies catch up with their normal developmental rhythm. Unfortunately, some babies' eyes cannot achieve normal vascular development due to many factors.
Far from being beneficial, the resulting random vascularization can negatively affect other normally functioning vessels and eye tissues and progress to cause blindness.
Due to these dangerous features, ROP is one of the most important and preventable causes of childhood blindness in developing countries.
So what is our duty? What can we do for our baby?
Robe examination is a special examination that is not performed by every center and every physician and requires care, attention and experience.
In the fight against this disease, which can be easily controlled with regular examination and treatment, the duty of every parents and family elders with a premature baby is to consult an ophthalmologist experienced in ROP when their baby is 1 month old (4-6 weeks old). to have their examination and treatment.
Stay Healthy, Look Healthy....
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