New content is added to the site regularly, so visit us frequently or subscribe to our mailing list to catch up with all that we have to tell you!
 Eye Development in Babies
After finding out if it is a boy or a girl, parents are usually very keen on seeing how the baby will look. Will s/he be fair or dark skinned, will s/he have dad’s blue eyes or mum’s brown ones? At birth, baby’s eyes are not yet fully developed. They cannot see properly at first. Even the colour of the baby’s eyes at birth is not yet the final colour. Most babies are born with blue/grey eyes. As the baby gets older more melanin is added to the eyes, making them darker.
The eyes start developing two weeks after conception. Just six weeks after conception, the major eye structures are formed. The mother’s health and behaviour during these weeks is crucial. If a mother takes drugs or develops German measles the eyes may be malformed or damaged. All through out pregnancy the eye continues to grow and mature and so does the optic nerve (the nerve that connects the eye to the brain). When the baby is born, the eye is about 75% the size of an adult eye.
At birth, babies can already see in colour but can’t make much of what they see. At first they can only slightly focus for a very short distance, which is about the distance of the person’s face who is feeding them. They can however see light and will close their eyes when exposed to bright lights. By 6 to 8 weeks, their vision greatly improves and babies can gaze at an object and follow its movement.
As the eyes become aligned, they start working together and babies start to develop 3D vision allowing them to decipher distances of objects that are placed next to them. By 4 months of age, the baby’s eyes should be aligned. Speak to your paediatrician if your baby still has crossed eyes by this age.
Baby’s eye colour continues to change during the first few months of life as more pigment is added to the top layer of the eyes. The eyes’ colour usually keeps changing until 6 - 9 months of age. It may take up to 3 years for the eyes to take their final adult colour.
|
