I have several blind friends who are in their mid fourties to fifties. All were blinded by something that happens to premature babies. Back then, they thought it was too much O2 in the incubators. (They often had corneal scarring.) But there were cases where twins were in the same incubator, and one was blinded and one wasn't. Reducing and humidfying the O2 has not solved the problem. Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) still happens.
Eight years ago when Curran was in the NICU, the medical director told us that all newborns in the NICU get Vit. E now. I asked if that was because of ROP, and he said "yes". He didn't speak English very well so maybe one of us misunderstood. I do know that Vit. E can speed closure of the hole in the septum (heart) that usually closes by birth.
And I saw a TV show recently where they said they still don't know the cause, but that they were now keeping the preemies eyes covered. They said, even a brief exposure to fluorescent lights could cause blindness.
News release, courtesy of my Infobeat service.
(I don't know how long they keep the story online. So I put the text below.)
Blindness in some babies not caused by light Release 05/27/98 BOSTON (Reuters) - Lights in hospital nurseries pose no threat to the eyesight of premature babies, contrary to a long-held suspicion, researchers said in a study released Wednesday. The findings were based on a new study of hundreds of premature infants in New York and Texas published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. For years there has been a concern that lights in hospital nurseries might increase the risk of blindness in premature infants, a condition known as retinopathy of prematurity. The ailment is a leading cause of blindness among children. It appears during the development of the retina, the wall of light-sensitive cells at the back of each eye. Dr. James D. Reynolds of the State University of New York at Buffalo led the team that gave 205 premature infants special goggles that screened out 97 percent of the light going into the eyes. Another 204 premature children were exposed to regular nursery lighting. When the goggles were removed -- four weeks after birth or 31 weeks after conception, whichever was longer -- the researchers found that 102 babies who had worn the goggles had some degree of retinopathy of prematurity, compared to 100 infants who were in the group exposed to standard lighting. ``We found that light reduction does not reduce the risk of retinopathy of prematurity in infants at high risk for this disorder,'' Reynolds and his colleagues concluded. The notion that too much light might increase the risk of blindness in premature babies stems from earlier research showing that high levels of oxygen cause blindness in premature infants by generating charged particles in the retina. Bright lights came under suspicion because light can also generate the charged particles, known as free radicals.
This is a very interesting field. If anybody reading this knows any more than this, let me know.
