Young children can wear contact lenses

Opposing the conventional wisdom of optometrists that children below the age of 12 cannot use contact lenses, a recent study found that now children as young as 8 can handle the responsibility of wearing contact lenses.Myopia, or shortsightedness, begins around age 8. A three-month study of 10 nearsighted children showed nine of them handled daily disposable contact lenses with little trouble. Researchers from the Ohio State University found that many parents don't realise that their 8-year-old child can handle the responsibility of contact lenses, so they don't tend to ask them. But children in this study wore contacts without relying on their parents to put them in and take them out. The researchers used daily disposable lenses to relieve the children of the need to clean and disinfect lenses.

Optometrists don't recommend contact lenses for children younger than 12 because they believe they are not responsible enough to care for them. But studies have shown 8-year-olds can put them in and out without help from parents. Similar results were seen from larger studies of children of this age who have used other types of contact lenses. Many children are told that they can't wear contacts until they turn 12 or 13, but younger myopic children can wear rigid gas-permeable or soft contact lenses.

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