"Doctor, please see if my son has been rubbing his eyes. Is he entering bug ?"
"The examination results are out, it is high myopia ."
An anxious couple came to the pediatric department that day. Ms. Wang’s son is only 12 years old. Recently, he often rubs his eyes for no reason. When he sees his son squints his eyes most of the time. The couple suspected that the child had bugs in his eyes, so they quickly took him to the hospital for examination.
After a checkup, the doctor told them that the child suffered from high myopia. This made Ms. Wang very incredible. Neither the couple had myopia. It was impossible for to be genetically inherited from . Besides, the child is only 2 years old, how could he get high myopia!
The doctor said sadly that it is related to lifestyle habits.
What exactly is the reason why a 2-year-old child actually suffers from high myopia? Let me learn about the main causes of myopia in children.
The main causes of myopia in children
Myopia is a condition of refractive error in the eye. It refers to the fact that the distant light cannot be focused on the retinal photosensitive layer without using the regulation function, causing the patient to be far-sighted and unclear. Myopia often occurs in childhood, and generally develops into adulthood after it occurs in children and adolescents.
Some parents and scholars believe that myopia is mainly due to excessive use of electronic products. However, a survey data shows that children in the United States use electronic devices longer on average than children in China, and then the probability of myopia is lower. Obviously, electronic product is not the main cause of myopia as everyone thinks.
So what is the main cause of myopia in children?
, light stimulation
newborns have not developed retinal . The development of retinal is not perfect, pupil is not sensitive to light reflection , lacrimal gland does not develop, cornea is relatively dry and lacks the protective function of the retina. Therefore, some light stimulation may cause damage to the macular area of children's retinal , leading to myopia in childhood.
First of all, the most harmful thing to children is Blu-ray . Blu-ray is widely present in electronic devices such as computers, TVs, and mobile phones. The LED backlight used in displays generally emits blue light. Blue light can release energy, and the lens that penetrates the eyes reaches the retina. Long-term exposure will cause the atrophy of retinal pigment epithelial cells, resulting in decreased vision.
In addition, when people look at the blue light screen, in order to focus on , eyeball will always be in a tense state, which can cause visual fatigue, and in the long run, the eyes will also cause myopia.
Especially for children, the eyes are not fully developed and the self-regulation function is poor. Facing blue light for a long time will lead to vision loss, and in severe cases it will also harm the nervous system of the eyes .
Secondly, direct sunlight can also cause children's vision to decline or even damage.
The powerful ultraviolet often makes people afraid to look directly for a long time, which is even more harmful to children. Children's cornea and lens are more transparent than adults, and light can better invade the fundus and damage the macular area of the retinal. Because the energy carried by UV itself is very high, it is likely to cause burns to the retina.
UV damage to the eyes is also divided into acute and chronic . Acute injuries will instantly harm children's eyes and cause eye diseases, while chronic injuries will gradually accumulate, gradually affecting children's vision development, resulting in myopia and other conditions.
, heater light , laser pen and other light sources, which can also lead to myopia in children. Younger babies like to see "bright" things, and do not form a subconscious to avoid reflections of , so they will look directly at the light emitted by the heater and laser pen. The light of the
heater is a typical infrared light , which has energy and heat and directly enters the fundus of children's eyes. It will also affect the photosensitive ability of children's eyes for a long time, causing vision loss and other phenomena.
laser point light beam illuminates light spot . The energy of the light spot passes through the cornea and lens, and is absorbed by the macular area of the retina, it will be damaged by the radiation of these energy lights, causing vision to decline, and in severe cases, it will also cause the visual object to become dark and unable to recover.
Different types of light will cause varying degrees of damage to children's eyes, and are not limited to the light stimulation of electronic products, but children should avoid long-term contact.
, sugar
There is another factor that affects children's vision and will be ignored by parents. That is the intake of sugar .
Children eat too much sugar, and the process of metabolism of sugar will produce a large amount of acid into the blood, combining with calcium element in the body, causing a decrease in blood calcium level in the child's body, and calcium participates in the retinal composition. After the reduction, it will cause a decrease in elasticity of in the child's eye wall toughness .
and during the metabolism of sugar, there will also be vitamin B involved. Eating too much sugar will lead to a decrease in the level of vitamin B in the body.
vitamin B has a protective effect on visual nerve . Too low content may also lead to eye axis growth and eyeball deformation. The axis of the eye is the length of the front and back diameter of the eye. Too long the eye axis will cause light to enter the eye and can only focus in front of the retina, thereby causing myopia. Combined with
, eating too much sugar will cause adverse metabolism, causing children's retinal elasticity and eye deformation, resulting in myopia.
, close-up eye
clinical data found that most of the simple myopia is related to close-up eye . The correlation between close eye use and myopia is higher.
A foreign study also showed that myopia in children is more closely related to the use of their eyes when reading in close distance. Especially when children have high academic pressure, their bodies cannot maintain a standard distance sitting position for a long time, which will cause the eyes to shorten the distance between and of the book, ciliary muscle to be in a state of continuous contraction and spasm, and lens also becomes thicker.
After external light enters the eye, after refraction of the already thickened lens, focus will not fall on the retina, making the eyes unable to see objects in the distance.
The reasons for myopia in children have been almost said. I believe many parents are still very concerned about how to reduce the risk of myopia in their children and prevent the occurrence of myopia?
prevent myopia. Pay attention to these
. If you want to prevent myopia, the first thing you need to pay attention to is to regularly check vision . Especially children have poor expression skills and are not able to quickly judge physical abnormalities like adults. Therefore, parents should pay special attention to changes in their children.
But try not to wait until the child has obvious abnormalities before seeking medical treatment. Some eye diseases such as myopia are almost irreversible and will also affect the child's future growth.
Therefore, parents are advised to take their children to the regular ophthalmology department of hospital to check their vision status. Some undetectable changes will appear under professional medical facilities.
Regular eye examinations can not only detect symptoms in a timely manner, but doctors can also monitor children's vision development and provide improvement measures for individual problems, so as to better help children's eyes develop and not be vulnerable to damage.
Children's diet should also pay special attention to .
Parents should ensure that their children's diet is balanced and nutritionally , and promptly stop the bad habit of picky eating. As mentioned earlier, the decline in calcium and vitamin B levels will affect eye development, so you can pay more attention to supplementation in daily life.
Foods containing calcium such as dairy products, beans, seafood, celery and other vegetables can increase the elasticity of the retinal eye wall in children's eyes and the toughness of the eye wall.
Foods containing vitamin B, such as soybeans, peanuts, black rice , etc., can also be eaten more to inhibit eye axis growth and eyeball deformation, thereby inhibiting the occurrence of myopia.
is also crucial to protect children's eyes. You can carry a hat when going out to avoid direct sunlight, and block strong light stimulation when necessary. Try not to turn on a heating fan around children to reduce the exposure of children under ultraviolet rays and infrared rays.
Pay attention to Clean children's hands . Because children like to rub their eyes with their hands, it is easy to bring bacteria into the eyes, causing damage.
Although electronic products are not the culprit of myopia, close eyes and long-term blue light stimulation are the ones.
However, the situation of electronic products is complicated when used, and it is impossible to maintain a certain distance at all times. It is not certain whether the automatic eye protection of electronic devices such as mobile phones is effective. Therefore, parents should take children to put down their electronic devices and go to outdoor activities. Natural light can also improve children's sensitivity and perception of color , which is of great help to eyeball development.
Finally, parents can ask the doctor for the correct acupoints around the eyes of , , remember to massage the child at home as eye exercises .
Eye exercises have a significant effect on relieving eye fatigue and are a good means for primary and secondary school students to relieve eye fatigue and prevent pseudo-myopia on campus. It is more suitable for children. During the observation and exploration of a day, children will inevitably use their eyes too much. Timely acupoints massage can help children prevent myopia well.
However, before massage, you must determine the correctness of the techniques and acupoints.
written at the end
The child has a high degree of myopia at a young age, which involves the hearts of his parents. Myopia in children is mainly due to external light stimulation, as well as excessive sugar intake and the most important influencing factor - the habit of using eyes at close range.
Therefore, in daily life, parents should pay attention to taking their children to the hospital for their vision check regularly, arrange more calcium and vitamin B supplements for children, remind their children to pay attention to hand hygiene and correct their children’s bad eye habits, take their children to exercise more outdoors, and ask doctors for eye exercises to give their children eye massage.
References
【1】Ma Nan, Chen Fei. Analysis and treatment progress of myopia related factors in adolescents and children[J].South China National Defense Medicine Journal , 2017, 31(5)
[2]Fan Enyue, Mu Shanshan, Gu Chunyu, Liu Wendong, Zhao Jing, Lu Jia. Clinical distribution and analysis of the best corrected vision in adolescents [J]. Chinese Journal of Strabopia and Pediatric Ophthalmology, 2012, 20(4)
