When Should My Child Get Their First Eye Exam?

With school season starting, Dr. Mark has had many exams for elementary school - aged patients. One of the most common questions has been, “I have a baby. How old do they need to be for their first eye exam?”

Unfortunately it isn’t well known that it is best to have an optometrist examine your baby for their first exam between six months to one year of age. In this primary exam, Dr. Mark will evaluate for the refractive, binocular, and accommodative status of the eyes, or how well your baby can see, how well their eyes team together, and how well they can focus. He will also examine ocular health and related conditions, some of which could be missed at a standard pediatric examination. Any diagnoses and management would be communicated so your baby can be on track to strong, healthy vision, which could later affect learning and attention.

Common things to be on the lookout for are a large difference in prescriptions between each eye (anisometropia), which can progress into lowered visual ability even with glasses on (amblyopia). Infants may also have eye turns (strabismus) that are generally much more easily treated if it is diagnosed at an early age. Some ocular diseases in children are: retinopathy of prematurity (lowered vision due to changes in the retina from incubator treatment), ocular inflammatory disease, which could be sight threatening, retinoblastoma, which could be LIFE threatening, cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and disorders with the optic nerve, and genetic diseases and degenerations, which can all have effects on vision through adulthood. Most of these are very difficult to notice without having a thorough examination, and behaviors at home are not always correlated to the problems.

Dr. Mark is part of the InfantSee program, a branch of the American Optometric Association. He loves working with children, and what this means to you, is that if you do have an infant between six months to one year old, Dr. Mark will see them for their first visual and ocular assessment for no charge!

According to the standard of care from the American Optometric Association, after the first exam, your child should be seen at least once between three to five years of age, before first grade, and every year thereafter.

Check out more resources for infant and pediatric exams on the InfantSee Parent’s Center webpage, All About Vision’s infant exam rundown, and the College of Optometrists in Vision Development webpage. Email Dr. Mark with any questions or for more information.

At North Park Family Vision, we look forward to taking the best care of your children!