How a newborn child looks. Connection with the world established, or when does a newborn begin to see and hear? Why do you need a professional examination by a specialist in six months

23.04.2019

How newborn children see is a topic, of course, that excites young parents, because there is a lot of truthful and mythical information. These are the basic questions about the eyesight of young children, to which research has provided perfectly accurate answers.

When does a newborn baby start to see?

Studies have shown that the baby sees even in the womb - he perceives a bright light directed at the mother's abdomen. A newly born child sees everything around him as blurry and vague, like a person who has emerged from darkness into light.

How does a newborn see?

He distinguishes between light and shadow, reacts to bright eyes by closing his eyes. The child sees the outlines of people and objects at a distance of 20-25 cm, the outline is indistinct, in the background everything is solid and gray.
Unique is the ability of a newborn to distinguish faces that are bent over him from the environment. He is still learning to focus his gaze and react to sounds.
Especially young mothers are interested in: do newborns see and recognize their mother? The child sees the mother, of course, most often, but recognizes her by the smell and closeness of the breast in general gray tones... Gradually, this passes, and by the age of three months the baby can already distinguish faces and objects well, distinguishes mom and dad from strangers and is able to concentrate his attention on the subject for about ten minutes.

What colors does a newborn see?

Basically, the baby sees everything in a gray background, but it is known for sure that from the very first days he can distinguish a bright red color and shiny objects. Then the yellow color is added and this is how the child sees the world up to 2-3 months. Later, at 4-5 months, he will gradually begin to distinguish between blue and green colors.

It is also widely believed that newborns see everything upside down. However, this is not true. Indeed, the image on the retina is inverted in accordance with the laws of optics, but the newborn has not yet developed a visual analyzer and, in principle, does not see anything. The analyzer of vision and the structure of the eye develop at the same time, and when the baby begins to see, he sees everything correctly.

When a long-awaited event takes place in the family and a child is born, parents eagerly begin to expect signs of awareness from their child. It is believed that newborns have neither sight nor hearing, experience only a feeling of hunger and react exclusively to light. If we accept all of the above as a fact, a logical question arises - when does a child begin to see?

Vision of the newborn in the early days

After birth, the child's eye muscles are not yet trained, so he cannot fix his gaze. The eyes in newborns may converge on the bridge of the nose or diverge in different sides it is also a direct consequence of muscle weakness, which wears off over time. Among other things, there is an opinion of scientists that a newborn sees the world as flat and even upside down, and only after the formation of the optic muscles acquires the vision of an adult. At the moment, this theory does not have unconditional support among doctors and is considered unproven.

What does a newborn see

Doctors all over the world agree that newborns react only to the brightness of the object and the world see in the form of blurred spots, as if examining an impressionist painting. For some time after birth, children only open their eyes for a short time, and this is natural; one should not forget that the child has just emerged from the darkness. The visual field of a newborn is only 60 centimeters.

Healthy: The neck of newborn babies is very weak and parents need to constantly support the baby's head. You read,.

How far does the baby see

Of course, children see immediately after birth, but they do not have clear vision. The most preferred distance at which a newborn can see an object is 20-25 centimeters, in addition, the object should be at the level of the child's eyes. This distance is not accidental, it is at this distance that the mother's face is from the eyes of the baby during breastfeeding.

Important. If parents want to get to know the newborn as soon as possible, they must wait until the child opens his eyes wide and bring his face closer to him at the distance indicated above. It is worth noting that the baby may like to look more at his father's face than his mother's, since the features male face clearer, and the presence of a mustache and beard adds contrast to it.

How to draw the child's attention to an object:

it is recommended that the child be given an upright position by picking him up;
rush is unacceptable, the baby needs time to concentrate;
bring the object or bring the child at a distance of 25 centimeters to the object;
when contacting a newborn, facial expressions are used in combination with a calm voice.

Strabismus in infants is normal -

What colors do newborns distinguish

A child after birth sees the world in gray, however, is able to distinguish bright red as well as shiny objects. A little later, the newborn becomes able to distinguish between yellow. In this form, the baby's vision lasts up to four months. After four months, blue and green are added to the colors of the newborn's world.

Interesting. Black-and-white pictures following the parent's faces can claim the attention of newborns. They attract the attention of babies with their contrast.
Important! Babies are very picky in the choice of the subject of concentration. And if one of the parents was constantly shown to the newborn in glasses, then when he appears in front of the child without an accessory, he may be faced with complete indifference and unwillingness to look at the parent. This is due to the fact that the child is able to keep the image of family members in memory, and is lost in case of misunderstanding, if there is a sharp change in the image.

When full vision comes

from2 to 6 months. From about two months old, newborns can follow the direction of an adult's gaze. And at three months, babies are able to clearly distinguish objects familiar to them, such as a bottle, a rattle, and the like. The size of distinguishable objects at this age ranges from 2 mm to 60 cm;
from6 months. From half a year of their lives, children begin to carefully examine and study the environment, they develop a grasping reflex, which allows them to more reliably calculate the distance to the object that interested them, which helps to form a three-dimensional perception of the world. The child can already focus on objects that are very close to the face, about 7-8 centimeters;
from8 months. From about eight months of his life, the child begins to see objects not only as a whole, but also constituent parts... He already realizes that objects do not disappear, but change their location, so he begins to look for objects of interest to him with a glance, and also carefully study the interior surrounding him. Vision continues to improve during this time.

And only by 3-4 years of age, the vision in children becomes identical with the vision of adults. It is at this age that it is already possible to carry out an examination of the child's vision to determine its acuity. It is interesting that the formation of the color perception of the world in children ends at the age of approximately 4-5 years.

More information for the eyes - better vision. Like any skills, babies' vision can and should be trained;
It is better to start classes in the form of games developing vision from 2 months;
To train your eyes, it is better to use a toy with a pleasant sound, which will help to attract the child's attention.
Example. Bring the rattle 20-30 cm from the baby's eyes. Monitor your baby's visual response. At the moment when the child caught a glance at the object, move the toy slowly to the side by 10-15 cm, then return it to its original position and take it to opposite side 10-15 cm.
The mobile is also an excellent visual simulator;
Let the child look at black and white pictures, this contributes to the establishment of connections between neurons and helps the development of not only vision.

Vision care from birth

It is always necessary to remember that vision is one of the most important senses through which a person learns the environment. The establishment and formation of future organs of vision occurs in the womb and develops within several years after the birth of the child.

Although the vision of a newborn is very different from that of an adult and does not yet play such a large role in his life, every effort must be made to maintain eye health. After all, eye diseases are not only poor eyesight, but also possible violation functions of other organs. If the child is at risk, that is, hereditary factor has a tendency to eye diseases, then a visit to an ophthalmologist is mandatory, at least 4 times in the first year of the baby's life, namely three times in the first half of the year and the fourth time a year.

The vision of newborns is strikingly different from that of an adult. What are the differences? How to take into account the peculiarities of the baby's visual function for a more harmonious and competent development of the child? What mistakes should be avoided so as not to impair the baby's eyesight?

How newborns see

Many people think that babies are born practically blind. Actually this is not true. Physically already formed and can see in the same way as an adult. It's all about the brain. It is he who is not yet able to process information so that the child can see the complete picture of the world.

Newborn babies are able to distinguish between light, outlines of people and objects that are no further than 20-30 cm. Everything around them sees blurry, indistinct, devoid of contrast. This is not surprising, because visual acuity is only 0.005-0.015. Colors and patterns are also not perceived.

You can notice that a baby of several days old does not focus his vision on any object, his gaze is constantly moving. Do not be afraid of this, the situation will definitely change for the better.

What do children see? How does vision change with age?

1 month

Main objects per month visual perception for a baby, this is a mother's face and sources of bright light. It is still difficult for the baby to fix his gaze, so his eyes wander around the room.

Do not be afraid to leave the light on while your baby is sleeping. This will not disturb or wake him up, and when he wakes up, the child will definitely look for a source of light with his eyes, which will stimulate and train visual function.

There is an opinion that newborn children see the world around them upside down. It is a myth!

2-3 months

During the second and third months, vision begins to improve markedly. The world starts to play bright colors! Children of this age distinguish colors such as bright yellow, red, orange, bright green. The baby sees objects and people as if in a two-dimensional space, the baby's brain is not yet able to perceive a three-dimensional image. At this age, it is time to buy bright toys-rattles for your child. You can often spread the crumb on the tummy. This position contributes to the correct visual development.

4-6 months

From the fourth to the sixth month, visual function becomes even more perfect. The central area of the retina and the visual centers in the brain begin to work more smoothly and correctly. Babies this age is already actively considering the surrounding objects and are interested not only in them, but also own body... They clap their hands, play with their feet, are able to take an object in their hand.

By the end of the sixth month, it's time to be examined by a good pediatric ophthalmologist. It is necessary to make sure that the baby's eyes see equally well, there is no squint, eye movements are coordinated, there are no diseases that could interfere further development vision.

7-12 months

During this period of life, vision in children becomes absolutely the same as that of an adult. The only difference is the sharpness. Fully 100% visual acuity is formed only closer to school age... But this does not mean that the child sees poorly! It can be noted that the volumetric spatial perception of the world has already been mastered. The kid actively crawls, walks, sees parents and recognizes them, distinguishes objects and is interested in everything that is around him.

At this age, it is time to start classes with subjects that have a certain shape- cubes, balls of various sizes, pyramid, toy-sorter. It's not scary if the child does not immediately get a tower of cubes or a regular pyramid, kids of this age are just learning to distinguish the shapes of objects.

What you need to pay attention to the parents of a newborn

To monitor the correct development of vision, it is necessary to undergo timely examinations by a professional ophthalmologist. However, the vigilance of the parents can help the case in the event of any eye disease. You should pay attention to such things:

Eyeballs should be normal size... Eyeballs protruding from the sockets, when the child's eyes seem to be "rolling out" - this is a bad symptom that requires an immediate examination by a doctor.
The pupils must be round shape and the same diameter. If you direct light to the baby's eye, the pupils will narrow.
You should also pay attention to the color of the eyes. Normally, it is the same. The full color of the baby's eyes is determined only by the end of the third month. In nature, people have different eye colors, but this is rare, therefore, if the baby's eyes are clearly different color then it is best to consult your doctor.
Be sure to monitor how the baby focuses on the subject. This can be done starting from 2 months of age. From the third month of life, you can drive a rattle in front of the baby's face from side to side. The child must keep an eye on the subject.
Constantly watery eyes are not a sign of the norm and need to be examined by a specialist.
Severe squint or movement of the eyeballs in different direction also requires an immediate medical examination.

At what age do you need to visit an ophthalmologist regularly?

In most cases, the first visit to a vision specialist occurs at the age of one month during the mandatory examination of the child. If this did not happen, then you definitely need to get advice from this specialist before the age of six months.
The next time the ophthalmologist is visited already in a year, also during the obligatory full examination baby. After that, you need to go regularly to check the eyes every year.

Of course, if there are any problems with the eyes or there is a suspicion of wrong development or deterioration of vision, the visit to the doctor cannot be postponed!

How to promote the development of a child's vision?

There are a few simple ways help your child develop visual function effectively. To do this, it is enough to play with the baby, choose the right toys and carefully observe the child.

From the first days, it is imperative to let him look close to the face of mom or dad, let him feel them. it pleasant pastime very good effect on the development of vision.
What colors of toys should I prefer? In the first months of life, you need to buy bright toys in yellow-red-green colors. In the future, you can expand the color variety, because vision is developing.
The nursery must be decorated in light colors and take care of good lighting. Too bright, annoying shades are not suitable for a nursery. Bright colours can only be used as small accessories and in the selection of toys.
There is an opinion that the child should not be brought to the mirror. It is a myth! Children love very much when they see their reflection in the mirror. This is not only fun for the crumbs, but also good activity developing vision.
For small children (from 2-3 months) you can use hanging toys, mobile, tie colorful bows, shreds to the side of the crib. It is important to remember that all toys for children under one year old should be bright and large, no small parts!

The visual health of a child is inherent in nature. The task of mom and dad is to preserve and develop it.

The visual system of a newborn is not like the visual system of an adult. For the first 2 weeks of their life, children practically do not react to visual stimuli. Under the influence of bright light, their pupils only narrow, their eyelids close, while their eyes wander aimlessly independently of each other. During this period, vision is still weakly associated with consciousness.

Visual acuity is determined using optical glasses (lenses) using special tables or devices - eye refractometers. A visual acuity equal to one is considered the norm. In a newborn, it is much weaker than in an adult, and reaches 0.015, then, however, gradually increases to 0.01-0.03. Such poor vision is due to the fact that the retina has not yet formed, and yellow spot(that part of the retina, thanks to which vision becomes 100%) is still completely absent.

If an adult had such vision, life would not be easy for him, but for the time being there is nothing especially for the baby to look at and there is no need to look at it. All he needs is his mother’s face, her breasts and a bottle with a nipple, and they are always close and large enough to catch their gaze.

On the 10th day after birth, the baby already follows with its eyes a bright large toy if it is more than 15 cm and falls into its field of vision at a distance of 20-25 cm.

After 2-5 weeks, the baby is able to fix his gaze on a bright light source (candle flame, flashlight in the dark).

During the 2nd month of life, the child monitors the movement of a bright toy up, down, left, right. He develops the first ideas about the volume of the object. Experts believe that the child can even distinguish between the simplest colors (for example, yellow and orange). Babies mostly look horizontally and only eventually vertically.

Parents are often frightened when they notice that the baby's eyes are directed in different directions, that is, each eye seems to wander by itself. This is normal right after birth. Only after 4, and sometimes 8 weeks in newborns, the movements of both eyes are consistent. If the strabismus persists for more than 8 weeks, the child should be shown to a doctor.

At 3-4 months, the level of development of eye movements in a child is already quite high. Parents should remember that if there are colorful, attractive, moving objects in the child's field of vision, as well as people performing various actions, the baby's visual function develops faster. This is also facilitated by the grasping reflex manipulation with various subjects the size of a cube.

However, when a child tries to reach something, he, as a rule, misjudges the distance to the object. In addition, the baby is often mistaken in determining the volume of objects. He tries to grab the moving shadows sun bunny, a flower woven on my mother's dress. The perception of volume in children develops only when they begin to move in space.

Visual acuity continues to increase to OD-0.4. If both eyes see the same thing, then stereoscopic vision reaches an almost adult level.

The ability to distinguish color first appears at the age of 2-6 months. Scientists believe that the perception of colors begins, first of all, with yellow and red, the ability to recognize green and blue colors occurs later, and usually ends with the formation color vision by 4-5 years.

From the 6th month, the child examines and actively examines his immediate environment, while the grasping skills significantly improve, which becomes more and more accurate. On the basis of this, the infant forms visual representations of distance, which, in turn, develops a three-dimensional perception of the surrounding world. During this period, visual acuity does not increase much, but other visual skills are continuously improved.

In the period from 8 to 12 months, the baby begins to perceive the object not only as a whole, but also in parts. He begins to actively search for a toy that suddenly disappeared from his field of vision.

At home, a child's visual acuity can be checked by his ability to distinguish small items and their details, notice the movement of different figures, people. From a year to 2 years, visual acuity ranges from 0.3 to 0.6, almost complete consistency of eye and hand movements is achieved. At the age of 3-4 years, the child's vision becomes almost the same as that of an adult. At this age, it is quite easy to accurately determine the visual acuity of a child, since most children already freely distinguish the icons on a special table for examining vision. However, since the curvature of the cornea in a baby is less than that of an adult, its refractive power is also lower. This explains hyperopia of varying degrees in the majority of children (92%).

Vision is an extremely important function of the body. Thanks to sight, a person sees the world around him and himself in it. It is vision that allows us to perceive the beautiful and the ugly, the colorful and the faded, the bright and the dim, knowing the world in all its diversity. The child's development largely depends on how the child sees.

When talking about vision, they usually mean the eyes. But eye- this is peripheral part of the visual analyzer which also includes optic nerves and cerebral cortex... The eye perceives the image and translates it into nerve impulses, which are carried along the optic nerves to the cerebral cortex, where they are processed and the image is formed. The interaction of these components of the visual analyzer gives vision.

WHAT AND HOW DOES A BABY SEE?

Eyes become clogged in the third week intrauterine development and are formed throughout pregnancy. Very little research has been done on the intrauterine vision of a child, but it is known that even a baby born at 28 weeks of gestation reacts to bright light. In addition, it is considered proven that the reaction to bright light occurs in a child before birth - in the womb. A child is born with a not yet mature visual analyzer (its formation is completed only by the age of 10-11).

There is an opinion that a newborn sees the world upside down - is this so? If we abandon speculation and operate only with facts, the situation is as follows. As in an adult, on the retina of an infant, the image is actually displayed upside down (this is an objective optical law). It was found that the cerebral cortex, which analyzes the image, "adapted" to turn the picture. It is impossible to say whether a person is born with this skill or acquires it over time: after all, the baby will not complain about the undignified behavior of the mother, who for some reason has turned upside down. Therefore, all reasoning on this topic, caused by a completely understandable desire to recreate the picture of the world seen by a person who has just come into it, is of no scientific or practical interest.

Immediately after childbirth literally falls on the child great amount visual stimuli, because it gets from the dark womb into the bright surrounding world.

A newborn has very weak eyesight: he sees only large objects located in the immediate vicinity. This is where deep meaning... Nature, as it were, protects the baby from excessive visual stimulation, making it possible to single out the most important thing from the huge diverse world: mother's face. Indeed, he sees best at a distance of about 40-50 cm - just so far from the baby is the mother's face during feeding. It is recommended to place toys no closer than 40-50 cm from the face of the newborn.

If the newborn is shown bright toy, he will not stop looking at her. But already from the second week of life appears gaze fixation - his short-term delay on objects. However, the baby is not yet able to concentrate for a long time. When his gaze is not fixed on any object, he may have an apparent squint - uncoordinated eye movements. In fact, this phenomenon has nothing to do with true strabismus, being a normal manifestation of the functional immaturity of the visual analyzer. This, however, does not mean that newborns do not have true strabismus - only an ophthalmologist can correctly assess the state of the child's visual apparatus.

Binocular gaze fixation (the object is fixed with two eyes) appears at 2-3 months of life. At this age, eye movements become coordinated and "squint", if it was apparent, and not true, disappears. From 2-3 months, the child begins to recognize the mother, and then other close people, reacting to their appearance in his field of vision with a smile and a general motor activity... Visual acuity increases significantly during the first year of life. By the sixth to eighth months, children begin to distinguish with a glance against the general background simple geometric figures, and from 1 year - and more complex drawings.

Color perception ... In addition to the myth of the "upside down world", there is another legend, quite firmly rooted in the minds of many, concerning the vision of an infant. Very often you can hear that a newborn baby has black and white vision and only over time the world is colored for him different colors... This is not so, although there is some truth in this delusion - as in most others. As we have already said, the same “picture” is displayed on the retina of a newborn as on the retina of an adult. However, the baby begins to focus his gaze selectively, gradually isolating from surrounding reality certain colors. Goethe wrote: “ Yellow pleases the eye, expands the heart, invigorates the spirit, and we immediately feel the warmth. Blue color on the contrary, it presents everything in a sad way. " Intuition did not disappoint the author of "Faust" - indeed, first of all, kids begin to hold their eyes on objects of the yellow-green scale, but very soon other colors join it.

WHAT DOES DEPEND ON THE PARENTS?

Moms and dads should remember that a lot depends on them - including becoming visual functions child. I would like to give some practical recommendations:

1. The eye is an organ very sensitive to the effects of internal and external environment... It is the parents' job to take care of general health and proper nutrition baby.

2. The child must be in a well-lit room - keep this in mind when choosing a room for the nursery.

3. For correct development the child needs enough visual impressions. The kid should be surrounded bright objects different shapes and different sizes... It may not only be expensive toys bought in the store, but also homemade garlands or balls made of paper or cloth different colors- the fruit of your imagination. It must be remembered that in early age they should be located at a considerable distance from the child (40-50 cm). And one more thing: it is advisable to periodically change the toys surrounding the child.

VISIT TO THE OPHTHALMOLOGIST

Unfortunately, babies can have various diseases eye. Most common reasons congenital diseases are:

adverse influence environment;
diseases of the mother during pregnancy:
- - - - transferred rubella
        
        tuberculosis
        
        viral diseases;
genetic factors.

Pathological changes in the organ of vision can be observed in newborns with congenital toxoplasmosis. Sometimes parents can suspect this or that eye pathology - by outward appearance child. For example, they may notice ptosis (prolapse) upper eyelid; microphthalmos (reduction of the eye); Macrophthalmos (enlargement of the eye), which occurs in congenital glaucoma; opacity of the cornea (the so-called "thorn") and lens ("white pupil") - with congenital cataract. Redness of the eyes and eyelids also indicates trouble. An attentive mother will not miss strabismus in her child (we wrote about physiological and true strabismus above). Sometimes in newborns, bluish-red spots are visible on the skin of the face and eyelids. This is telangiectasia (uneven expansion small vessels). As a rule, the spots disappear on their own within a few months. However, if the number of such spots does not decrease over time, but increases, you should consult a doctor to exclude benign tumor vessels (hemangiomas).

And yet it would be the deepest delusion on the part of parents to believe that Attentive attitude to the child - a guarantee of detecting any eye disease. Take, for example, the most aggressive and severe of these diseases that pose a threat to the life of a child, retinoblastoma, congenital malignant tumor retina. As a rule, the ophthalmologist may suspect this tumor even in maternity hospital or at the first examination of the child in the clinic. Parents, who are not armed with special knowledge and tools, may notice changes in the form of a white or greenish glow of the pupil only on later stages illness. We stopped at this formidable disease not at all in order to scare, but precisely because with it early diagnosis and correct treatment it is possible to save not only the life of the child, but also in some cases the eyes with residual vision. In addition, by the appearance and condition of the eyes and its individual structures, the doctor can judge with great certainty the state of the body as a whole. For example, congestive optic discs appear with an increase in intracranial pressure... This condition requires immediate consultation with a neurologist. An optometrist is often the first specialist who can suspect metabolic disorders, kidney pathology, of cardio-vascular system, congenital infections (eg rubella, syphilis, tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis). The conclusion suggests itself - in no case should you neglect a visit to an ophthalmologist in the first months of a child's life! Only an ophthalmologist can conduct an examination of a child, correctly diagnose and prescribe treatment. He may resort to conservative therapy, or may recommend surgery. For example, congenital cataracts and glaucoma are treated only by surgery. The doctor determines the tactics of treatment in each case individually.

For the first time, the child should be shown to an ophthalmologist in three months old, the second time - in 6 months, the third time - in 1 year. What examinations are performed by an ophthalmologist?

General examination (the doctor assesses how the eyes move and the baby's eyelids close).
A preliminary assessment of vision (whether the baby reacts to light, at what distance he sees objects).
Determination (using special skiascopic rulers) of refraction - the refractive power of the optical system of the eye (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism). It should be noted that for children under three years of age, hyperopia is a normal refraction. The optometrist determines the degree of refraction. For example, for high degree farsightedness needs correction with glasses to prevent strabismus and amblyopia (low vision due to functional underdevelopment of the organ of vision). If necessary, glasses are prescribed for children under one year old.
And, finally, the study of the deep media of the eye and the fundus using an ophthalmoscope and a slit lamp.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the examination of babies certainly carried out with a wide pupil (to dilate the pupil, special preparations are used that are instilled into the child's eye). If your child did not have pupil dilator drops in their eyes before the test 1 , it is worth asking your doctor the reason for this.

I wish you that your baby looks at the world with healthy and happy eyes - it depends to a very large extent on you!