Eye Diseases and Symptoms in Babies!

Vision problems are much less common in newborns than in adults. However, it is also more difficult to detect eye problems in infants than in adults. We brought together information about eye disorders in babies by saying just in case. Come on, read it now!

What are the stages of vision development in babies?

We can list the following information about vision development in newborns .

• Newborns can easily see objects 20 cm away.
• They tend to look into the eyes of the person in front of them. Therefore, making eye contact with your baby is beneficial for his social development.
• The true color of your baby’s eyes will develop between 3 and 6 months .
• In the first weeks, tears do not flow from the crying baby. After a period of 1 month, tears begin to come.
• In the early stages, the baby will pick out black and white objects better than colored ones.
• A one-month-old baby can look at the light for a short time.
• When your baby is two months old , he will recognize you and maybe even smile.

1- Eye disorder in babies

At the beginning of the eye diseases in babies are myopia and hyperopia, which are related to vision. If you are asking how to understand visual impairment in babies, you can examine the situations listed below. We recommend seeing an ophthalmologist if babies have a few of the signs of an eye disorder.

• Headache complaint
• watching television closely
• Do not look closer than 30 cm while reading a book or painting
• Redness, burrs, watering complaints
• Feeling of eye drift

2- Eye watering

Eye watering will be one of the situations that you will encounter frequently, especially in the first three months after birth. Since the baby’s tear duct may be clogged during this period, this situation can be opened by itself with massages and sneezing.

Other possible causes could be:

• Inflammation on the inside of the eye
• Eyelashes sticking together after sleep
• Foreign body and allergy

When you notice that your baby’s eye is watering, you can clean the eye using warm boiled water and cotton. If watery eyes are seen in babies that do not indicate a serious problem , if a baby under three months is accompanied by fever, antibiotic treatment may be required. We recommend that you consult your doctor and do not take any action without obtaining detailed information.

You may also need to take your baby for an eye exam if the eyes still continue to water after three months.

3- lazy eye

As a result of abnormal development of vision, lazy eye problem is seen in babies. This problem, which can be hereditary, can be seen in babies born prematurely and whose development is slower than normal. If you are asking how to understand lazy eye in babies, let’s say it.

• Inward or outward shift of the eye
• The two eyes do not move in harmony with each other

In this case, we recommend that you consult a doctor, as let’s say that if amblyopia is not treated, your baby may experience mild to severe vision loss over time. In the case of treatment, however, surgical intervention is rarely needed. However, this disease, which can be treated until the age of 17, should be done as early as possible in terms of the development of the nerves between the brain and eyes.

4- Strabismus in babies

Next up is strabismus, one of the most common causes of lazy eye. As a result of the imbalance in the muscles that keep the eyes in the correct position, eye shift occurs in babies . As a result of this situation, sometimes both eyes and sometimes only one eye slide outwards. The eyes cannot move parallel to each other.

If you’re wondering in which situations strabismus occurs and causes strabismus in babies , here are our answers:

• Genetic predisposition
• head trauma
• febrile diseases

By the way, some of the strabismus you may observe in your baby may not be related to strabismus. The wideness of your baby’s eyelids and nasal root makes it look like his eye is slipping. To be sure, we recommend that you consult a doctor. In addition, it should be noted that if strabismus in babies is not intervened in a timely manner, problems such as low vision may occur, not only in terms of aesthetics.

How is an eye exam done in babies?

About a month after your baby is born, vision problems may occur. During this period, we recommend that you pay attention to whether your baby has signs of visual impairment. Because let us remind you that early diagnosis is of great importance for the treatment of eye problems that may be seen in your baby. Eye examination in babies, on the other hand, is nothing to be afraid of. With the help of devices that will not hurt the baby, the pupil is dilated and the examination is performed. With this method, anterior and posterior eye sections are examined in detail.