The visual acuity of a newborn baby is 20/600; This is almost equivalent to blindness for an adult. A one-month-old baby's vision is very poor, but he has a reflex to avoid objects coming towards him. Until the age of 6, visual acuity gradually improves over time. Before this age, we can say that your child cannot see like an adult.
2-3 month old babies sometimes cannot take their eyes off the objects they are looking at for a long time, and the following eye movements are intermittent; As the brain develops, those intermittent movements give way to movements that constantly follow. There is no focusing on distant objects; They can only see a distance between 1 span (the distance to the mother's breast) and 3 spans.
A newborn who cannot perceive colors can distinguish colors as well as an adult through the color receptors that develop when he reaches his 4th month. Babies love to look at patterns, but they cannot perceive the differences in tone between objects; Therefore, they prefer to look at objects with significant contrast, such as black and white; You can also choose toys with obvious contrast.
When both eyes work together, our perception of depth occurs. While this is not possible in a newborn, depth begins to be perceived in a 4-month-old baby.
Starting from the newborn period, babies love to look at faces, they are not picky, the mouth of toys is and if they have two eyes, they look with pleasure as if they were looking at you; However, starting from the age of 5 months, they begin to perceive the real face and look at it differently.
If serious eye problems such as cataracts are not diagnosed and treated quickly in the sensitive periods of the first months of their lives, it is inevitable that they will become adults who cannot achieve the visual acuity of their peers in the future.
Cataract, Problems such as amblyopia and strabismus deprive babies of the experience they need to gain visual acuity. This can prevent the correct development of babies' visual systems.
Cataract is the whiteness you notice in the pupil, the cloudiness of the lens; It has various causes and treatments, and it is easy to notice by parents and pediatricians.
Strabismus is the inability of both eyes to look in the same direction, it is noticed by parents and doctors.
Lazy eye is generally not noticed, g� It is diagnosed by ophthalmologists. Here, while both eyes look very healthy, one eye sees much less than the other. It may be caused by refractive error or strabismus in one eye; laziness is reduced in 1/3 patients with corrective glasses. Another method is to close the good eye to activate the weak eye.
What is important in all early vision disorders is not to delay, taking into account the speed of neural development, to take precautions before serious damage occurs, and to start treatment.
My advice to you as a pediatrician is Unless there is a special situation, you should have your baby examined by an ophthalmologist after the age of 1 and continue follow-up in accordance with his/her recommendations. If necessary, together with your doctor, an eye examination can be performed earlier by expert hands and delays can be avoided.
I wish you healthy and peaceful days
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