KCBA - Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz - News Weather-Contact lenses help save the sight of some infants
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Three year old Charlotte Fisherman has been wearing a contact lens in her left eye since she was five weeks old.
A rare disorder caused her eye to develop a cataract like condition before she was born. There was a risk she could have lost sight in that eye and so at five weeks of age she had surgery to remove her eye's natural lens.
Soon after, Charlotte was fitted for a contact lens at Children's Hospital Los Angeles to help her sight develop normally.
The brain's visual pathway doesn't fully mature until the age of eight.
" If you don't have a focused image going to the brain in the first couple years of life you won't develop vision in on or both eyes", says Dr. Marl Borchert.
One in five premmies will have some kind of eye condition. so pediatricians need to examine their eyes more frequently . Infact, California has passed a law that requires babies have their eyes dilated and their sight examined at two months to catch problems.
Doctors say babies adjust to the contact lens and by the time they hit the terrible twos wearing a contact lens feeels normal.
As for Charlotte? Doctors say she may always wear glasses or contacts but it's a small price to pay for a lifetime of sight.
