Pediatricians suggests that not all children are getting the same level of eye care - and that poor, uninsured, black and Hispanic children are getting the least. Children don't have to be able to talk to have eye examinations. Most pediatric eye doctors (ophthalmologists and optometrists) use devices such as hand puppets to evaluate vision in young children.Early vision testing and treatment for children is imperative as most eye problems can be corrected if caught early.
Children learn to see properly during the first year of life. If a serious eye problem occurs early on in a child’s development and is left untreated, the visual system will never learn to see correctly and vision may be lost permanently.Premature infants at risk for losing their vision may benefit from earlier laser therapy to treat retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a blinding disease that affects premature, low birth weight babies.
Strabismus is a common condition among children. Normal alignment of both eyes during childhood allows the brain to fuse the two pictures into a single 3-dimensional image. If vision is reduced, the brain of the child will learn to recognize the stronger image and ignore the weaker image of the amblyopic eye. This will eventually cause a loss of depth perception.
Breast-fed children are significantly more likely to do well in measures of stereoscopic vision than are those who received formula during infancy, according to UK researchers.
Human beings generally come equipped with two eyes and one head. Make sure you have these necessary parts before attempting to see 3D. Thanks to the close side-by-side positioning, each eye takes a view of the same area from a slightly different angle. The two eye views have plenty in common. A stereoscopic image, appears to have real depth where objects can even seem to leave the surface of the display device.
Stereo vision--or stereoscopic vision --probably evolved as a means of survival. With stereo vision, we can see WHERE objects are in relation to our own bodies with much greater precision--especially when those objects are moving toward or away from us in the depth dimension. We can see a little bit around solid objects without moving our heads and we can even perceive and measure "empty" space with our eyes and brains.
"Our study," Dr. Atul Singhal of the Institute of Child Health, London, told Reuters Health, "adds to the growing evidence that breast-feeding has long-term benefits for visual development."
A higher concentration of the fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) in breast milk than in formula has been proposed as one explanation for this effect, Singhal and colleagues note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and this has been a rationale for adding DHA to infant formula.
To further investigate, the team studied 78 previously breast-fed and 184 previously formula-fed children ages 4 to 6 years who were followed prospectively from birth. In the first 6 months of life, the formula-fed group was randomly assigned to formula with or without supplementation with DHA or arachidonic acid.
When they were tested, breast-fed children were significantly more likely to have greater stereo-acuity than did children in either formula-fed group. There were no significant differences between children who did or did not receive formula containing DHA.
The researchers conclude that "these findings support the hypothesis that breast-feeding benefits long-term stereoscopic development."
Singhal added, "We don't know the mechanisms involved, but this benefit does not seem to be explained by the presence of certain omega 3 fatty acids -- DHA -- in human milk."
If early detection of visual impairment is important for long-term educational performance, which we think it may be, then it's possible that disparities in eye care and corrective lens use may lead to an 'education gap' by gender, race, ethnicity, income and insurance status,"
The results, he notes, mean doctors, parents and schools need to do better at screening all children for vision problems, making sure they get referred for eye care, and finding ways to overcome economic, social and cultural barriers to good vision.
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