Don’t worry, because in general, the coordination of the movements of the eyes of the newborn is still not formed. These factors cause nystagmus and squint. The definition of nystagmus itself occurs due to rhythmic movements without eye control. While squint is a disturbance that occurs in the two eyes that are not symmetrical so that it looks like one eye is looking straight while the other eye looks in the other direction.
In babies under 3 months of age, vision is often not optimal. The baby’s eyes function as optimal vision at the age of 3-6 months and over. Meanwhile, if you find asymmetrical focus on a baby over 6 months of age, you should be vigilant. Squint disorder is divided into two forms, first is the squint form esotropia and exotropia. Esotropia is a squint towards the depth so that it approaches the bridge of the nose and also exotropia, namely squinting outward so that it is away from the nose.
There are several ways you can recognize the signs of crossed eyes in babies:
1. Focus optimal new baby’s eyes at the age of 3-6 months. Then you can do a focus sensitivity test on babies starting at 3 months of age. Point out the colors and toys he likes, observing whether the focus of his two eyes is on the same object or not. If you experience a difference in your focus, don’t rush to say that your baby squints before your baby is 6 months old.
2. Do an eye test when your baby is 6 months old with a simple game at home. Shine the flashlight in the middle of the middle between the baby’s eyes. So you can detect the light reflex from the baby’s eye in the middle of the eyeball or not. Babies who detect you in the middle can breathe freely because your baby’s eyes have no problems, while babies who are not in the middle are likely to have squints.
The simple method that is done by you above has a difference in the handling of squints because it has to be adjusted to the condition of the squint. The difference between squints is as follows:
1. Squints caused by lazy eyes so that one of your baby’s eyes is not actively seeing so the correction you can do is to close the normal baby’s eyes so that your baby’s lazy eye can be trained.
2. Furthermore, squinting which is caused due to limited vision is caused by farsightedness so you need plus glasses when your child is an adult. Vision limitations that can be detected early is one of the differences in the ability to see between right and left.
3. Finally, the eye muscles are one-sided, so surgery is needed. The operation can be done more than once. Despite this the operation is mild and has almost no side effects. So it is important to consult with a pediatrician.
Further tests can be done when your child is 2 years old. Usually you will be asked for data, consisting of 6 months of age, 1 year of age or 2 years of age. This data is very important for doctors to determine if your child’s abnormalities are congenital or non-congenital. So that at the age of toddlers (under 5 years) it is very important if you can eliminate the dominance of one of the eyes that is not crossed in your child. With the predominance of function, the eyes are crossed and thus have decreased.