Will my child wear glasses all of his life?

If your child is diagnosed with myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism, and a prescription for glasses is necessary, you may wonder if he will have to wear them for life. Are near or far vision problems progressive? Pierre-François Kaeser, a university lecturer and clinical researcher, director of the paediatric strabology and ophthalmology unit at the Jules-Gonin Ophthalmic Hospital, answers this question.

Corrections that may evolve in line with the child’s visual development

First of all, you must know that the eyes are not mature at birth. Eyeballs will indeed continue to grow during the first years of life. This means that the power of corrective lenses or an optical correction will also change during growth.

Without wishing to generalise, it is common for myopia to worsen over time. A myopic child is thus unlikely to be able to stop wearing glasses as he grows. On the contrary, hyperopia tends to decrease with growth, since this visual defect involves an eye that is too small and still has a chance of developing.

In any case, if the need for optical glasses is significant in children, the probability of it disappearing completely with growth is relatively low. 

Corrective solutions that also evolve over time

In adults or older children, glasses adapted to vision can be replaced by contact lenses. The adult may eventually undergo refractive surgery to replace spectacle frames.

To summarise, we have no way of determining whether corrective glasses will be necessary throughout life. This unknown justifies the need to carry out regular checks with the ophthalmologist to adapt the glasses to the evolution of the children’s eyes, and to ensure that they always have adequate visual correction, in order to correct the refraction and allow them to have the best possible vision.

Find out more about children’s visual disorders

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