How Pediatric Eye Exams Can Protect Your Child’s Eye and Vision Health

Your child’s eyes and vision change drastically as they grow and develop. Pediatric eye exams are crucial for detecting these changes in your child’s vision and providing appropriate treatment to keep their eyesight sharp. These exams can also catch eye and vision issues before they impact your child’s learning ability and quality of life. Arena Eye Care Optometry in Sacramento, CA, offers pediatric eye exams as part of our family eye care services to ensure clear and healthy vision. Our optometrists Dr. Krister L Holmberg and Dr. Shephali Patel are here to explain the importance of pediatric eye exams and how they can protect your child’s eyesight.

What to Expect From Pediatric Eye Exams

Our optometrists will perform tests to check your child’s eyes and vision. For example, we evaluate your child’s eye health to detect signs of disease or conditions like amblyopia or lazy eye. We also check your child’s vision to determine if they have farsightedness, nearsightedness and other refractive vision errors. We can then prescribe corrective lenses during this time to manage vision problems before they lead to future complications.

Benefits of Pediatric Eye Exams

Having your child’s eyes checked regularly allows our eye doctor to find signs of diseases, infections, or other eye conditions that may affect their vision. These exams also help us keep track of changes in your child’s vision. Doing this allows us to correct refractive vision errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism with prescription eyeglasses. Routine eye exams also lower the risk of learning difficulties in school due to vision or eye problems. Something to keep in mind is children oftentimes do not realize their vision is worse than it could or should be because they don’t know any better.

How Often Do Children Need an Eye Exam?

Children should have their eyes and vision examined once a year or more often if recommended. Our optometrist can tell you how often your child may need an eye exam. Children with eye or vision problems may require more recurrent visits to check their condition. Having your child keep up with their scheduled eye exams is crucial for tracking your child’s eye and vision development. Doing this allows our optometrist to update prescriptions as needed.

When to Schedule Your Child’s First Eye Exam

Your child should have an eye exam by the time they start kindergarten. Ideally, you should schedule your child’s first exam when your child is between three and five years old. After the initial exam, your child should have an eye exam annually unless Dr. Holmberg or Dr. Patel recommend otherwise.

Schedule a Pediatric Eye Exam at Arena Eye Care Optometry to Protect Your Child’s Vision

Pediatric eye exams are integral for catching and treating eye and vision issues in children before they impact their learning ability and quality of life, so contact Arena Eye Care Optometry in Sacramento, CA, to schedule your child’s pediatric eye exam today. Our eye doctors can evaluate your child’s eyes and vision on a routine basis to protect their eyesight, so call us and schedule an appointment at (916) 419-8167. You can also schedule an appointment via the Online Access tab menu at the top of the screen.