Have you ever played Peekaboo with your newborn babies and wondered just what exactly they see when they look back at you?
When your babies are in utero, their eyes begin to form around four weeks after conception.
Major structures, like the cornea, iris, pupil, lens, and retina, begin to form a couple of weeks later, and by 10 weeks', your babies will have formed eyelids that are fused shut to protect their eyes as they continue to develop.
By the second trimester, their eyes can detect light, but their optic nerves, which connect to the brain, and retinal cells are still developing. At 27 weeks', their eyes can open and blink. By 32 weeks', their vision refines, and they can detect different levels of light.
Once your babies are born, their eyesight continues to develop in several different stages over the first several months of their lives.
In the early days, your children's central vision is still developing and they're learning how to adjust their vision as they focus on and track moving objects. Later, they work on developing their depth perception, grabbing and gripping items, and properly judging distances as they learn to walk and navigate around their environment.
If your twins are born early and end up spending time in the NICU, you'll become familiar with the health hurdles your small but mighty babies will face before they become NICU graduates and head home.
As a parent of premature babies, you will also become familiar with the difference between your babies' actual vs. adjusted age and why it's important to track both when you have newborns who were born prematurely.
Studies have found that twins, especially those who have lower birth weights or shorter gestational ages, could be at higher risk for certain vision problems, like amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (misaligned eyes).
When your babies prepare to leave the neonatal intensive care unit, their ears and eyes tested as part of the routine health screening before being discharged from the hospital.
In addition to your babies' regular pediatrician well-check appointments, it's important to have your children's eyes tested as they grow because eye problems can delay their development. Detecting and correcting ocular anomalies early can help prevent the progression of problems with their vision. Good eyesight can contribute to your children's physical development and their overall well-being.
Unless you suspect a potential issue sooner, your twins should have an eye exam under their belts by the time they're between three and four years of age, with another one taking place before they start at school.
Looking at genetics
Do you wear glasses? Do your parents wear glasses? Does this make you wonder if your children will need to wear glasses?
Genetics play quite a role in your children's overall eye health. When it comes to heritable risk, identical twins tend to be at a higher risk for both myopia (AKA nearsightedness...as I write this, I am keenly aware of the fact that I am a twin who is nearsighted) and refractive errors, which happen when the eye doesn't focus light properly onto the retina and leads to blurred vision.
Genetics also play an interesting role that might make a person look differently when they're seeing double (read: when they come across a set of twins).
A study that looked at gaze patterns among same-sex twin pairs (51 percent monozygotic and 49 percent dizygotic) suggests genes influence eye movements well into childhood.
Published in scientific journal Current Biology, and conducted by professors Dan Kennedy, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, and John Constantino, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis, the study included eye tracking data from a sample of 233 twin pairs (a mix of 119 identical and 114 fraternal sets).
By using eye-tracking technology to gauge the gaze of participants as they looked at pictures of social and non-social scenes and then creating a "heat map" from the data to chart the areas that caught their attention in each photo, researchers discovered that identical twins tend to look at the same parts of photos, showing the greatest similarity in eye movements across both simple and complex images.
Fraternal twins showed similar viewing patterns, but not to the same level as identical twins. Data collected for the gaze patterns of unrelated children showed viewing patterns that were even less alike.
As a group, they generally looked at similar parts of a photo (like at a bright color or where action was taking place), but on an individual level, participants showed notable differences in where they gazed, no matter how complex the image was. Across the board, identical twins had the greatest similarity in their viewing patterns, drawing researchers to conclude that genetics play a role in this phenomenon.
Looking at environmental factors
While genetics seem to play quite a role in overall eye health, environmental factors can also impact your children's visual development, and there are things you can do to help support that growth.
- Feed your kids a balanced diet rich in nutrients, like zinc, lutein, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins A, C, and E, which are known to be beneficial to eye health.
- Boost their visual engagement. According to Johns Hopkins, interacting with high-contrast colors and patterns in toys and even home decor can engage newborns and toddlers; approaching new objects from a variety of angles can give them a wider field of vision; and playing games like Peekaboo and Patty Cake with babies or playing Catch with your toddlers can stimulate hand-eye coordination.
- Limit screen time later in the day to prevent sleep problems that can be caused by exposure to blue light.
- Protect their eyes with proper eyewear when playing sports.
- Watch for potential problems, like sensitivity to light, squinting, frequent head tilting, rubbing their eyes, holding items very close to their eyes, poor hand-eye coordination, disinterest in objects that are far away, or colorblindness, which, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, is more common in boys and may cross your mind if you notice a problem when your children are learning colors. One example of a colorblindness symptom the AAO gives is the inability to differentiate between shades of the same or similar colors (most commonly red and green, or blue and yellow).
Here's looking at you, kid
Good eyesight can contribute to your children's physical development and their overall well-being.
Eye problems can lead to a delay in your children's development, so it's important to have their eyes tested as they grow.
Early detection and correction of ocular issues or anomalies can help prevent the progression of vision problems.
How do you keep an eye on your twins' vision development and health? Let us know in the Comments section below or connect with us on Instagram to share your thoughts!
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