Children’s Eye Injuries: Prevention and Care

When children participate in sports, recreation, crafts or home projects, it’s important for them to know eye safety practices and use protective glasses as appropriate. Each year thousands of children sustain eye damage or even blindness from accidents at home, at play or in the car. More than 90 percent of all eye injuries can be prevented through use of suitable protective eyewear.

Sports deserve particular attention, because eye injuries occur fairly often in children and young adult athletes: between the ages of five and 14, most sports-related injuries in the U.S. occur while playing baseball. Learn more about eye injuries and prevention.

Preventing Injuries

• Children should wear sports eye protectors made with polycarbonate lenses for baseball, basketball, football, racquet sports, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, paintball.
• All chemicals and sprays must be kept out of reach of small children.
• Parents and others who provide care and supervision for children need to practice safe use of common items that can cause serious eye injury, such as paper clips, pencils, scissors, bungee cords, wire coat hangers and rubber bands.
• Teach your children to be Eye Smart by safeguarding your own sight with ANSI-approved protective eyewear during potentially dangerous yard work and household repairs or projects.
• Only purchase age-appropriate toys.
• Avoid projectile toys such as darts, bows and arrows, and missile-firing toys.

Tender Loving Care

When your child is unwell, she needs more than just medication. Indulge her and help make her feel better by cheering her up.

Very often we force awful medications down our child's throat when she is sick, with little regard to her feelings. Naturally, we want our children to get better, and if the medicine is bitter, it's just something she has to take. However, very often, there are various alternatives to any medicine, and if your child hates the taste of a particular brand, do speak to the doctor and find out if there are any alternatives. Many parents don't do this, thinking that they or their child doesn't have a choice - when in fact, they do. Your child may hate taking Crocin, and Disprin, dissolved in water, may be more appealing. 

If there are no alternatives to a particular brand, perhaps you can give her the medicine in a form that would be more appealing to her, after checking with your doctor. Find out if if you can mix the medicine with a spoon of honey. Or perhaps, you can crush the medicine and roll it in some chocolate. Let your child know that you are giving her medicine, but you've tried your best to make it taste less repulsive. This is better than trying to trick her into eating it. She may get a nasty shock when she puts the chocolate piece in her mouth, and will want to spit it out. On the other hand, if she knows she's getting medicine, she may be pleasantly surprised to see that it doesn't taste half as bad in this form as she had feared.

Choosing Eyeglasses for Children

When a doctor prescribes glasses for your child for near-sightedness, far-sightedness or amblyopia, he is not likely to tell you how you go about choosing frames. An optician, with his knowledge of the products available in the market, is at a better position to advice you on this. Adults can pay more attention to style and fashion when it comes to eyewear and accessories, as they can instantly judge what is comfortable for them. But it is not that simple in case of children. Children are unable to tell you what fits well and is comfortable; you have to make an intelligent choice for them.

Here are some guidelines for parents to choose the right eyeglasses for their children:

LENSES: 

Lenses come in three types - glass, plastic and polycarbonate.

Glass 

Ideally, glass is the perfect material for lens as it is crystal clear and does not scratch, but it obviously ranks the lowest on the safety scale.

Plastic 

Plastic lens, then, is the second choice. These are also light compared to glass and come with a scratch-resistant coating. But they are priced slightly higher than glass lenses.

How to Raise a Healthy Child

Raising a healthy child is not only about making sure that child eats enough of food. It is very necessary to ensure that the child is eating healthy and eating right. Read on to know more about common mistakes which parents make and how parents can raise a healthy child.

Providing information and making children learn about the importance of health has become very important these days. Today various health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and many more which used to affect adults only are now seen in children also. You need to protect your children from any of the health problems because they are extremely precious for you.  Here is how you can make sure that you raise a healthy child.

Common Health Mistakes Which Parents Make

If you try to find out the common cause behind all these problems, you will find that it is the wrong eating habits and lack of psychical activities among children today. The introduction and rapid popularity of junk food has spoilt all good habits among not only children but adults also. Mothers do not have time or do not wish to spend time in kitchen these days and so they most often do not pay attention to the daily nutritional intake of their children.

Also, mothers try to give their children what they like to eat and they are satisfied thinking that their children ate at least something. Children have also left outdoor playing and stay glued to video games or watch television in their free time. If the parents are busy with their schedule, they prefer this because they can carry on their work without interruption.

Beware of Lazy-Eye

A visual examination done at an early stage of child's developmental years will go a long way in detecting and treating a condition called 'lazy eye' or in medical parlance, 'amblyopia' which arises in many school-going children in India. 'Lazy eye' is a particularly tricky condition, as it does not manifest outwardly, and therefore, goes completely unnoticed, unless the child has an obvious squint.

What is a 'lazy eye'? 

A baby's vision is poor at birth and develops over a period of time. Good eyesight requires that both eyes send same images in a clear and focused manner to the brain. Sometimes, for some reason, the child's central vision does not develop properly, one eye, or in some cases both the eyes, is not able to carry signals to the brain properly, as a result a blurred image is perceived. 

The eye which has reduced vision is called the 'amblyopic eye'. Outwardly, the eye may look normal, and the parent may not even realize that the vision in it is diminished. The child tends to ignore the weak eye and use the good eye resulting in further deterioration of the amblyopic eye. If this condition is not detected and treated early, it can lead to blindness in the amblyopic eye. 

Lazy eye is not caused by anatomical or structural defects of the eye, nor is it caused by any defect in the optic nerve. It is a deficiency in the visual pathway that carries signals from the centre of the eye to the brain.

Hiccups in Babies

Hiccups in babies are observed by many new parents. The main causes of hiccups in babies are not known but some preventive measures can reduce its occurrence. Read on to know how you can prevent hiccups in your baby.

Baby hiccups is something that most new parents will have to put up with during the first few months of an infant’s birth. Most infants get hiccups at regular intervals especially when they are exited or immediately after a feed. Hiccups are normal and nothing to be alarmed about.

Hiccups are one of the many normal reflexes that are common in newborn babies. New parents especially first time ones may not be aware of this fact. Another interesting fact about hiccups is that often mothers feel the baby hiccup even while the baby is still in the womb.

Convulsions in children

In most children aged between one and three years, convulsions are often linked to the development of a high fever. It is difficult to say what is the exact cause of convulsions.Febrile convulsions are not as frightening as they look.

What causes convulsions

It is difficult to say what is the exact cause of convulsions. In most children aged between one and three years, convulsions are often linked to the development of a high fever. The child's nervous system is immature and often cannot handle a high temperature the same way that an adult does. Thus, sometimes, the fever stimulates the nerves controlling the muscles and these, in turn, contract violently. Remember that febrile convulsions are not as frightening as they look. 

What happens when a child has convulsions

Convulsions due to fever usually only last a minute or two. When your child has a fit, she will probably lose consciousness and begin to twitch uncontrollably. She will clamp her jaws shut tightly and breathe heavily. Her eyes will roll back into her head and she will froth at the mouth. She may even become incontinent. Children usually fall asleep after the convulsions have passed.