Thursday, April 12, 2012

Does My Baby Need Glasses?



















If you remember my post from last week about baby's 6 Month Check -Up, I mentioned that I had to take litte J.T. to the eye doctor. I thought in my mind that this would be a quick check up and I would be out in a flash...boy was I wrong...


I get to the doctor's office and they bring us back. First they stick this funny looking googly creature on the end of the light beam and have J.T. follow it with his eyes. The doctor then proceeds to tell me..."usually the crossed eyes goes away by 3 months for most babies. I need to dilate his eyes to see if there are any vision problems going on."


What...they are going to dilate a 6 month old's eyes? So they put drops in and off to the waiting room we go...


As you can imagine, I was NOT too keen on them dilating his eyes. We had to sit in a dark waiting room for 20 minutes and wait. Did I mention that he was sick too with a cold/fever? So now I am holding a sick, cranky, hungry (because I didn't intend on being there for 1.5 hours), runny nose, wide eyed baby:-( Poor little J.T.


So 20 minutes is up and back to the chair we go. The doctor  then proceeded to do the "googly creature" test again as well as hold some lenses in front of his eyes. He then attempted to get his attention with a flashing light toy which also did not work. After mumbling a bunch of terms to his assistant (some of which I could understand from my medical background), he proceeds to tell me that he might need glasses!


What??? ALL KINDS OF THOUGHTS WERE RUNNING THROUGH MY MIND: How is a 6 month old going to wear glasses...I don't think I have ever seen a baby wear glasses before? How can this happen? Is it genetic? Did I do something that caused it? If it's this bad now, how will it be in 5 or 6 years? Will he need surgery?


Picture Credit
After my semi-minor panic attack, I did ask the doctor some of those questions. He could not really give me any definite answers. He said that babies are farsighted, and there is some scale (did you notice that they have so many "scales" in medicine) that they use to measure this. Most babies are a 0,1, or 2, but little J.T. measured a 6!!!


I don't really understand how the doctor can tell this on a baby who is squirming all over the place. But the "6" is his baseline rating. 


The doctor is giving him 3 months until he will re-check his eyes. If the number goes down, it  means his vision is improving and he will not need the glasses. If the number stays the same or increases...glasses are "highly suggested."


What do you think? Do you know any babies that have glasses?


Did your kids ever have eye problems?


What do you know????





5 comments:

  1. I've seen a few babies with glasses. They sure do look cute! :o) How did they know to send you to see an optometrist?

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    1. When the pedi saw him for his 6 month, she said it looked a lot better than 4 month appt, but it was still uneven from the other one...so she wanted a second opinion! Everyone keeps telling me they look cute:-)The picture on this post is what he might look like..ha ha

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  2. I have known a few young toddlers (12mth) that have had glasses - they are super cute!

    stopping by from friendly followers

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  3. Hang in there Julie! We've been really diligent with making sure the dr checks my sons eyes every time, he's 8 months now. So far everything appears to be normal. My husband is almost legally blind and it gets progressively worse every time he gets his eyes checked. His parents didn't realize he couldn't see until he was almost 2! He suffered some serious developmental delays as a child. Good luck!

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  4. You might try finding a developmental optometrist who is likely to have a more holistic point of view about treating your son. Second opinions are so important, especially if you feel like the doctor you saw didn't answer all of your questions fully. Good luck!

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