All About Strabismus: Is Strabismus Hereditary?

If you know that a family member or a relative that has congenital strabismus, then one of the questions that you may want to know more about your child may be this: is strabismus hereditary? As you may have probably read in most sources, genetics play a key factor in the development of this condition. That’s why a few children are born with strabismus. Strabismus is hereditary but there are still a lot of thing that you can do about it. If you are worried that your baby has strabismus, here are some tips that you should follow.

Strabismus is a very straightforward condition wherein you can easily determine if a person has it by just looking at his or her eyes. And as strabismus is hereditary, you may examine the eyes of the infant for early signs of squinting. In a few cases, the baby may be exhibiting consistent or extreme eye turning even if he or she is still not yet a year old. When this happens, then by all means go to an eye specialist and have the eyes of your baby checked in order to get an official diagnosis and learn what the options for treatment are.

If you do not notice these early signs of strabismus in your child, you must still be prepared since there is still a possibility for it to develop. Again, strabismus is hereditary and if you have a known family history of it, then have the eyes of your child checked when he or she is already 9 months old. The reason for this is that it is during this time that the binocular vision system is already fully developed. Strabismus greatly affects the binocular vision of a human being thus it is during at this age that the eye doctor can specify a more exact diagnosis of the eye condition of the infant.

In addition, you can also find out if your child has strabismus if he or she is showing certain behavior that is related to eye vision problems. Some of the examples are bumping into things, sensitivity to light, tilting of the head when looking at an object, and closing of one eye in bright sunlight. The good thing is that although strabismus is hereditary, it can be cured at an early age if diagnosed and treated right away.