Positive American attitudes about sun protection for children's eyes
Let's start with the American Academy of Pediatrics' warning about sun protection for children.
Infants under 6 months of age.
Avoid exposure to the sun, wear light, long clothing and pants, a wide-brimmed hat that covers the neck (see below), and you can apply SPF 15 sunscreen in small areas and in small doses, such as the back of an infant's face and hands. If sunburn occurs, cold compresses are recommended.
Children of other ages.
First and foremost, the most important sun protection is also shade. Stay in the shade as much as possible and try not to go outside between 10 am and 4 pm on sunny days; recommend wearing a wide-brimmed hat (7.6 cm wide brim) or baseball cap, cowboy hat, and closely woven clothing; wear sunglasses that are required to block 97%-100% of UVA and UVB.
Lakes, oceans and rivers, desert beaches and snow can have more reflected UVB rays, causing larger areas of sunburn. This should also be given special attention.
Advices From the American Optometric Association
Children are exposed to three times more UVB per year than adults, with 80% of lifetime UVB exposure occurring before age 20. Children's lenses tend to pass more UVB and can therefore damage the retina. UVB radiation can cause eye diseases in people of all ages, but sun protection for children's eyes is more important because their refractive system is more transparent.
Pediatric clinics in California have questionnaires for parents to fill out while waiting for their child to be seen so that pediatricians can understand their child's growth and development. One of the surveys is Do you usually protect your child with sunscreen/hats/other measures when you are outdoors? This shows that American pediatrics is very concerned about protecting children from sun exposure.
Sunglasses can block UV damage to children's eyes
Sunlight consists mainly of infrared, visible and ultraviolet light. Infants and toddlers need visible light to stimulate their vision development, but do not need the high energy UV rays that humans use to disinfect. And the danger is that the chronic damage from UV light is undetectable. Wearing sunglasses outdoors does not affect a child's vision development
What sunglasses block are UV rays. Sunglasses come in 0-4 shades with different filter rates for visible light and cannot completely block visible light. It is only when light is completely blocked that children's vision development is affected, for example, by ptosis and cataracts. For example, our most commonly used sunglasses are Class 3 shades, mostly amber or brown, worn primarily in bright light (midday in summer or at the beach), where 9%-18% of visible light passes through the sunglasses.
Sun exposure can prevent myopia in children, but sunglasses should also be worn. Based on epidemiological studies, Ian Morgan, a myopia scientist at the Australian National University, estimates that children need to spend three hours a day outdoors in 10,000lux of light to prevent myopia - a level equivalent to a person wearing sunglasses in the shade on a sunny summer day. This also suggests that sunglasses do not hinder children's vision development and that wearing sunglasses can prevent myopia in children.
Therefore, parents should feel free to put sunglasses on their children. Considering the difficulty of fixing frames on the faces of small infants, infants under 6 months of age can be left out and shielded from direct sunlight with a wide-brimmed hat and a stroller awning; the standard wear for sun protection for infants over 6 months of age is a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses with an elastic headband.
