Tips for Children’s Eye Care

It is important to regularly check your children’s eyes. In fact, vision plays a major role in the way children discover the world. But, at what age should they go for their first review?

Children must pass their first comprehensive eye exam at age 3. From then on, unless the specialist tells you otherwise, they will have to go through it every two years.

These reviews are very important even if the child is already in school and participates in diagnostic programs for visual problems at the centre. These programs aim to test visual acuity (clarity and precision), but having healthy eyes does not only mean having 100% vision.

Other aspects of vision such as colour vision, comfort, and tracking can present problems that are not detected by these diagnostic programs.

Some tips by JLR Eye Hospital to help you preserve the good health of your children’s eyes

Observe the way your child observes the things around him at home and at school. Sitting too close to the television or the whiteboard, or bringing objects too close to their eyes, is a way of naturally compensating for his visual problems.
Strabismus and other signs of discomfort. Vision problems can lead to niches squinting, rubbing their eyes often, being particularly sensitive to light, or tilting their head to look at things.
Coordination difficulty. Eye-hand or eye-body coordination during physical activities (while playing tag or riding a bike, for example), can be impaired by vision problems.
Decreased attention or unusual interest. If inattention helps identify certain disorders associated with attention deficit, they may also be symptoms of vision problems. These problems can easily lead to a lack of interest in tasks that require close vision (reading, colouring, puzzles…)

The first visit to the vision specialist.

The first visit to an ophthalmologist can be unsettling for your children. Explaining what is going to happen is a great way to reassure him. It is advisable:

Read stories in which the character goes to see an eye specialist.
Describe the things you will need to do, such as looking at pictures, reading a letter board, etc.
Prepare them for the possibility that drops will need to be put in their eyes, but that “there will be no needles”.
Explain that it is not an exam like in school, it is not about getting it right, but about evaluating.
Good habits for healthy vision are acquired at a very early age. Find the best eye specialistfor your children and ask for advice.

In summer we enjoy more daylight hours and spend more time outdoors. Therefore, we cannot neglect eye health during these months. But not only at this time, but throughout the year it is convenient to wear sunglasses, even on cloudy days.

In addition, we must not only protect our eyes from solar radiation, but also from water – in the sea, rivers or swimming pools – and control the air conditioning because these are factors that can affect our sight.

And if we adults must be careful, we must pay even more attention to protecting children’s eyes. Just like applying sunscreen to their skin, it is very important to take care of their eyes in and out of the water.

Here are some suggestions to consider to protect your children’s vision.

Approved sunglasses with sunscreen

The first thing we must do is choose, under the advice of an optometrist, approved and suitable sunglasses, with an Ultra Violet (UV) filter. Special care must be taken if the child has light-coloured eyes since they are more sensitive to the sun’s rays.

You also have to look at the frame; Better that it be made of plastic or silicone and if it has rubber to hold them it will help them not to take them off and will make them forget that they are wearing them.

To achieve this, they must be the ones who choose them so that they are comfortable and put them on. We also recommend accompanying the glasses with the use of hats, visors or caps to further increase protection against solar radiation, especially in summer.

Not adequately protecting them from the sun’s rays can cause significant eye damage. In the short term, we could talk about keratitis, which in the case of the little ones manifests itself with symptoms of pain, photophobia and red eyes. And in the long term, we could talk about acute burns of the retina or degenerative lesions, among others. To avoid this, we must educate the child to never look directly at the sun.

How should we act in the water?

We recommend that little ones wear diving or swimming goggles when bathing in the pool, in the river or in the sea, to avoid possible eye irritation. In most cases, when faced with an irritated eye, it is usual for them to be rubbed and an infection or erosion of the cornea may occur. So it is highly recommended to avoid eye rubbing.

It is very important to accustom them from an early age to maintain good hygiene and wash their hands frequently. For example, at the beach, children get covered in sand and rubbing their eyes can cause irritation. In addition, especially in summer, by spending more time outside the home, on the street, they get dirtier and touching their eyes with dirty hands can cause infections.

Air conditioning control

Surely to beat the heat on road trips and make the journey more bearable, you turn on the air conditioning in the car. Similarly, the case with heaters in the winter. And at home?

If you do, you should know that special care must be taken, especially if the air hits directly as it can cause, among other eye problems, dry eye syndrome. It is a pathology that causes burning, gritty sensation, heavy eyes, itching or ocular discomfort. In the mildest cases, it may be enough to apply artificial tears in the form of eye drops or gel along with hygiene of the eyelids.

You should, of course, enjoy the holidays and free time with your kids, but you should also take extra care to protect their eyesight. Doing it from the first months of life will prevent future eye pathologies, since the child’s eye is more sensitive than the adult’s and also has a memory, as occurs with sunburn on the skin.