Importance Of Children Eye Tests

Conducting timely eye checkups of children and newborn babies is essential. This helps to identify any issue at an early stage and helps in eliminating it immediately. The severe problems of vision are rare during childhood but can occur due to hereditary or any deficiency. Therefore it is important to conduct eye tests at a developing stage to make sure that the issues are picked up and treated at earliest so that they don't turn into something grave.

Why Is Essential To Conduct Eye Checkups?

Children, especially newborns, do not realize when they have any medical issues and nor they know how to explain it. The routine children eye tests from time to time help to detect the problems at a very early stage so that they don't worsen over time. Routines and timely checkups can reduce the risk of an issue remaining undiagnosed for a long time, till it acquires a grave an incurable form. Eye problems can affect the overall development procedure and the education of a child, therefore, it is important to take care of them much before time.

Children eye-tests timeline

Some of the most suitable times for conducting eye checkup for kids are as follows:

1. Within 72 hours after a child is born. This is called the physical examination of a newborn. This is a physical examination which helps to detect some of the obvious problems. This treatment will help to identify an eye ailment if at all there is any.
2. Once the child is 6-8 weeks old, another examination needs to be conducted which is called the follow-up physical checkup. This helps to detect the problems which were initially not detected during the time of birth.
3. When the child is 1-2 year old, children eye tests should be conducted.
4. Again, now that the child is 4-5 years old, vision screening is done to check if the vision in either or both of the eyes of the child is reduced.
5. From here on children, eye-tests should be maintained once every year.

What Tests May Be Carried Out

There are some children eye-tests which should be carried out to detect eye problems in the children.

1. Red Reflex Test: This is a part of the treatment which is carried out on the newborns.
2. Pupil Reflex Test: This test is carried out to check how the pupil of a child's eyes responds to light.
3. Test To Check How A Child Reacts To The Visual Objects: This simple test helps to check how the newborn baby attends to and responds to visual objects.
4. Test To Detect The Range Of Movements: In this test, the attention of the child will be drawn towards an object which is visually appealing and exciting to look at. It is then made to move to different positions. This helps to check the functioning of the eye muscles.
5. Refraction Test: An optometrist conducts this. This test helps to determine whether a child needs glasses.
6. Test To Detect Colour Vision Deficiency: This eye test is conducted to check if a child is color blind. This is done in children who are a little older. Ishihara test is the most commonly used technique to detect color blindness in a child.

Conclusion

Eyesight and vision problems can occur due to some reasons. Some children may be suffering from a condition called childhood cataract in which cloudy patches are present in the lens right from birth. Some other causes of the vision problem in children may be myopia, hypermetropia, lazy eye, astigmatism and so on. Timely children eye tests help to detect all these problems right on time so that they don't keep on worsening. 

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