4 powerful ways to maintain child's eye health
To ensure children's eyes are kept healthy and free of visual impairment until they are grown, parents need to do these four things.
Speaking of child growth, many parents focus solely on height and weight and ignore the health of other organs. One of the most forgotten is the child's eye health and visual function. In fact, keeping your child's eyes healthy is not difficult!
Vision problems are identical to old age. In fact, children can also experience visual impairment or disorders. In fact, one in four children is known to experience impaired vision function.
Symptoms of visual impairment in children
Long-sightedness (eye minus or myopia), near-sightedness (eye plus or hypermetropia), and cylinders (astigmatism) are some of the various eye diseases that children can experience. All three often appear without a typical symptom.
However, parents can suspect the child is experiencing vision problems when they show signs below.
> The eyes appear to be squat, i.e. the two eyeballs are not in one same position.
> Kids are hard to see distant objects. When a child often spits eyes when looking at distant or difficult objects to look at the board at school, it may be farsightedness.
> Hard to see close. If a child is hard to read close and should keep his book away, you need to be vigilant because he or she may be in close sightedness.
> Blurred vision, usually the child complains of his eyesight blurred or blurred.
If the child shows one or more of the above signs, immediately take him to an ophthalmologist to have a visual function checked.
Things needed to maintain the child's eye health
Preventing is always better than treating. Before the little is impaired, parents must maintain the health of their eyes. A portion of the things that should be possible include:
1. Ensure good nutrient intake
The initial step for healthy eyes is balanced nutrients. Provide foods rich in vitamins A, C, E, and omega-3 fatty acids that are known to be good for eye health. Examples of food are various types of sea fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables, and nuts.
2. Avoid display of gadgets
Linger to see the television screen or gadget is a habit that can make the eyes dry and tired. If this happens continuously, the child will be experiencing an impaired vision.
Also, the blue light emitted from the device screen can interfere with the retinal lining of the eyes. Therefore, limit the use of gadgets especially in infants.
Children aged 0-18 months are advised to not see the screen or television at all. While the age of 18 months to 5 years, a safe deadline is not more than 1 hour per day.
3. Let the children play outside
Allowing children to play outdoors can also maintain the child's eye health. Research proves, in children who often play outside the house for a week, the risk of long-sightedness decreases to about 2 percent.
Invite the little ones or let him play outdoors in the morning or afternoon. If during the day, do not forget to put on the protection of ultraviolet (UV) rays such as hats, or if necessary glasses to protect their eyes from exposure to UV rays.
4. Routine Eye Health Check
Every year, try to bring children to see eye conditions and assess their vision function to the doctor, especially during toddlers and entering the school age.
If the child's eye is routinely examined, then the doctor can monitor whether or not there is a disorder. If present, the abnormality can be handled quickly and precisely.
Child vision disturbance is increasingly common. You as a parent must make the best effort to maintain the child's health. Observe the behavior of the little one, then avoid the risks of eye health in the four ways above. Thus, the small pair of eyes and their vision function will remain healthy and sharp until they are mature.