The long-term visual effects of short-term binocular occlusion of at-risk neonates.

A retrospective study of fifty 5-year-old children whose eyes were patched bilaterally to treat neonatal jaundice was compared with a study of a similar group of fifty 5-year-old children who were treated in the intensive care nursery but whose eyes were not patched. No difference in the incidence of strabismus or loss of stereoacuity was established in these two groups. Despite the experimental evidence documenting changes in the visual cortex and interocular alignment in animals binocularly deprived of visual stimulation near birth, the clinical practice of binocularly patching the eyes of neonates with jaundice does not seem to increase the incidence of subsequent strabismus or loss of stereoacuity.