Simple steps you can take to protect your child’s eyes and vision, from providing nutritious meals, and visually stimulating toys, to practising good ‘screen time hygiene’.
Good eyesight is crucial to a child’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Even before children learn to reach out and grab with their hands, or crawl and sit up, their eyes are providing information and stimulation important for their development. Uncorrected vision problems can impair a child’s development, interfere with learning, and can even lead to permanent vision loss.
Steps you can take to protect your child’s eyes and vision:
- Eat right both during pregnancy and after. Your baby will be healthier and you will set a good example.
- Provide your child with nutritious meals including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and fish. These foods contain key antioxidants and nutrients linked to eye health, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, and lutein.
- Give your child toys that encourage visual development. As your baby grows into an active child, continue to encourage good eyesight by providing visually stimulating toys that will improve motor and hand-eye coordination skills. Some good examples are:
- Building or linking blocks
- Puzzles
- Stringing beads
- Drawing tools like pencils, chalk, crayons, and markers
- Finger paints
- Modeling clay
- Limit the use of digital screens. With digital learning becoming common, screens—from computers to tablets and mobile phones—are more present in the lives of children than ever before. Keep screens at least 18 to 24 inches away from the eyes, and encourage your child to follow the 20-20-20 rule – look away from the screen every 20 minutes, and look at something else at least 20 feet away, for at least 20 seconds. While studies have shown that blue light from digital devices is not dangerous to the eyes, continuous viewing of these screens up close can lead to digital eye strain, a condition which can cause blurred vision or dry, irritated eyes, as well as issues with focusing. Good screen time hygiene may help lower the risk of myopia and digital eye strain.
- Encourage outdoor play. Studies show that being outdoors can significantly reduce the likelihood of a child developing myopia (nearsightedness). Spending an hour or two outdoors every day is a simple way to protect your child’s vision.
As per WebMD.com, there are three types of eye specialists who can provide children’s eye and vision care:
- Ophthalmologist
An ophthalmologist is a medical doctor who provides eye care, such as complete eye exams, prescribing corrective lenses, diagnosing and treating eye diseases, and performing eye surgery. - Optometrist
An optometrist is a health care professional who can provide complete eye exams, prescribe corrective lenses, diagnose common eye disorders, and treat selected eye diseases. Optometrists do not treat more complex eye problems or perform surgery. - Optician
An optician assembles, fits, sells, and fills prescriptions for eyeglasses.
Writer details:
Dr. Deepika completed her MBBS from Lahore, Pakistan and her MD in Ophthalmology from Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu. Her speciality lies in Cornea and Anterior Segment Diseases. She has a fellowship on cataract and anterior segment disease from Mechi Eye Hospital and a Cornea Fellowship from Shroff Charity Eye Hospital in New Delhi. She is a mother of a three-year-old and is interested in ensuring that parents recognize the importance of children’s eye health early on.
