Most commonly, children injure their eyes while they’re at school, while they’re playing or while they’re participating in sports.
It’s usually a scratch to the cornea, and it’s usually nothing serious, but any eye injury should be taken seriously. That’s the message during Eye Injury Prevention Month. Sometimes, the scratch can go deeper than the surface if it’s caused by a sharp object such as a stick or a piece of glass and can put a child at risk for permanent vision loss. Sometimes, a foreign body can be embedded in a child’s eye and will require a prompt examination to be removed.
How to protect your child’s eyes
Dr. Christina Kreinest, an optometrist with Metzger Eye Care in Covington, shares three tips for preventing eye injuries.
- Children who wear glasses or contacts should wear goggles while playing sports to help better protect their eyes.
- Always wash your hands before touching your child’s eyes (or your own).
- Do not try to remove anything out of a child’s eye unless you’re flushing it with saline or water.
Corneal scratches from sports ““ especially sports like basketball where elbows and fingers are involved ““ are very common, Kreinest said, and while protective eyewear can prevent most sports-related eye injuries, many parents don’t make their children wear eye protection.
Luckily, superficial eye injuries such as corneal scratches typically heal quickly.
“Most of the time for a scratched cornea, the child will get better by using artificial tears or antibiotic drops,” Kreinest said. “Most scratched corneas heal within a day or two without any long-term complications.”
To be safe, though, a child who sustains an eye injury should seek immediate medical attention.
“Remember you only have two eyes,” Kreinest said. “Do your best to take care of them.”
