September is Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month and to celebrate we will be providing you with eye safety facts and tips for your children each week. Although your child’s eye health and safety is important year-round, we hope you pay special attention to your child’s eyes health and safety needs this month. To kick-off our facts and tips for this week we are disclosing how you as a parent can help ensure that your child has good eye vision throughout life.
- Most children have healthy eyes; however, there are conditions that can threaten a child’s good vision.
- The conditions that affect children include:
- Amblyopia (lazy eye)
- Strabismus (crossed eyes)
- Ptosis (drooping of the eyelid)
- Color deficiency (color blindness)
- Refractive errors (nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism)
- Because some vision problems are easy to miss, infants should be screened during their regular pediatric appointments and vision testing should be conducted for all children starting at around three years of age.
- Be sure to schedule regular eye exams in order to catch any problems in the early stages.
- If there is a family history or your child appears to have a problem, speak to your Eye M.D. right away.
Tips from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.