[blparent] Your baby and how much light they need

[Veronica Smith]

Vision Development at Birth
Soon after birth, your doctor will briefly examine your infant's eyes to
rule out
signs of
congenital cataracts
 or other serious
neonatal
 eye problems. Though such eye problems are rare, they must be detected and
treated
early to minimize their impact on your child's vision development.
Your infant's vision development starts well before birth. Get prenatal
care, eat
well and get plenty of rest while pregnant.
Also, an antibiotic ointment is usually applied to your newborn's eyes to
help prevent
an
eye infection
 from bacteria present in the birth canal.
At birth, your baby sees only in black and white and shades of gray. Nerve
cells
in their
retina
 and brain that control vision are not fully developed. Also, a newborn
infant's
eyes don't have the ability to accommodate (focus on near objects). So don't
be concerned
if your baby doesn't seem to be "focusing" on objects, including your face.
It just
takes time.
Despite these visual limitations, studies show that within a few days after
birth,
infants prefer looking at an image of their mother's face to that of a
stranger.
Researchers believe this preference depends on large, high-contrast stimuli,
like
the boundary of the mother's hairline to her face. (In studies, if these
boundaries
were masked with a scarf or bathing cap, the infants' preference of looking
at their
mother's face went away.)
So to encourage visual interaction with your newborn child, keep your hair
style
the same, and avoid altering your appearance.
One thing you may notice about your newborn son or daughter is how large
their eyes
are. This is because normal infant development proceeds from the head down.
At birth,
your baby's eyes are already 65 percent of their adult size!
Your Baby's Eyes in the First Month
Your baby's eyes are not very sensitive to light in the first month of life.
In fact,
the amount of light required for a 1-month-old infant to be aware that light
is present
(called the light detection threshold) is 50 times higher than that of an
adult.
Keeping your appearance consistent helps your baby recognize and interact
with you
after birth.
So it's OK to leave some lights on in the nursery - it won't affect their
ability
to sleep - and it may help keep you from stubbing your toes on furniture
when you
go in to check on them!

Infants start to develop the ability to see in colors very quickly. At one
week after
birth, they can see red, orange, yellow and green. But it takes a little
longer for
them to be able to see blue and violet. This is because blue light has
shorter wavelengths,
and fewer color receptors exist in the human retina for blue light.
Don't be too concerned if your baby's eyes sometimes don't appear to be
working together
as a team early on. One eye may occasionally drift inward or outward from
proper
alignment. This is normal. But if you see a large and constant misalignment
of their
eyes, notify your
eye care practitioner
 right away.

Tips:
 To help stimulate your infant's vision, decorate their room with bright,
cheerful
colors. Include artwork and furnishings with contrasting colors and shapes.
Also
hang a brightly colored mobile above or near their crib. Make sure it has a
variety
of colors and shapes.
Vision Development: Months 2 and 3
Many advances in vision development take place in months two and three.
Infants develop
sharper
visual acuity
 during this period, and their eyes are beginning to move better as a team.
Your
child should be following moving objects at this stage and starting to reach
for
things he sees.
A bright, cheerful room with many colors and shapes helps stimulate your
infant's
vision development.
Also, infants at this stage of development are learning how to shift their
gaze from
one object to another without having to move their head. And their eyes are
becoming
more sensitive to light: at three months, an infant's light detection
threshold is
only 10 times that of an adult. So you may want to dim the lights a bit more
for
naps and bedtime.

Tips:
 To help stimulate your 2- to 3-month-old child's vision development, the
American
Optometric Association (AOA) has these recommendations:
Vision Development: Months 4 to 6
How quickly they grow!
By age 6 months, significant advances have taken place in the vision centers
of the
brain, allowing your infant to see more distinctly and move his eyes quicker
and
more accurately to follow moving objects.
Visual acuity improves from about 20/400 at birth to approximately 20/25 at
6 months
of age. Color vision should be similar to that of an adult as well, enabling
your
child to see all the colors of the rainbow.
Babies also have better eye-hand coordination at 4 to 6 months of age,
allowing them
to quickly locate and pick up objects and accurately direct a bottle (and
many other
things!) to their mouth.
Six months of age also is an important milestone because this is when your
child
should have his first
children's eye exam
.
Even though your baby doesn't know the letters on a wall chart, your eye
doctor can
perform non-verbal testing to assess his visual acuity, detect
nearsightedness
,
farsightedness
 and
astigmatism
, and evaluate his eye teaming and alignment.
At this exam, your eye care practitioner will also check the health of your
baby's
eyes and look for anything that might interfere with normal and continuing
vision
development. For the most thorough eye exam for your 6-month-old, you may
want to
seek the services of an eye doctor who specializes in children's vision and
vision
development.

Vision Development: Months 7 to 12
Your child is now mobile, crawling about and covering more distance than you
could
ever have imagined. He is better at judging distances and more accurate at
grasping
and throwing objects. (Look out!)
When your baby starts crawling, play with him on the floor to help develop
his eye-hand
coordination and motor skills.
This is an important developmental period for your child. At this stage,
infants
are developing a better awareness of their overall body and are learning how
to coordinate
their vision with their body movements.
It's also a time that requires greater diligence on your part to keep your
baby from
harm. Bumps, bruises,
eye injuries
 and other serious injuries can occur as he begins to physically explore his
environment.
In particular, keep cabinets that contain cleaning supplies locked, and put
barriers
in front of stairwells.
Don't be concerned if your infant's eyes are beginning to change color. Most
babies
are born with blue eyes because darker pigments in the
iris
 aren't completely developed at birth. Over time, more dark pigment is
produced in
the iris, which will often change your child's
eye color
 from blue to brown, green, gray or a mixture of colors.

Tips:
 To stimulate the development of your child's eye-hand-body coordination,
get down
on the floor with him and encourage him to crawl to objects. Place a
favorite toy
on the floor just out of his reach and encourage him to get it. Also provide
plenty
of objects and toys that he can take apart and put together.
Eye Alignment Problems
Be sure to pay close attention to how well your baby's eyes work together as
a team.
Strabismus
 is the term for a misalignment of the eyes, and it is important that it is
detected
and treated early so the vision in both eyes develops properly. Left
untreated, strabismus
can lead to
amblyopia
 or "lazy eye."
Though it takes a few months for an infant's eyes to develop eye teaming
skills,
if you feel one of your baby's eyes is misaligned constantly or does not
move in
synch with the other eye, contact your pediatrician or eye doctor as soon as
possible.