>Dee Kassing wrote:
>     You ask for research about alternating sides.   I don't have references,
>but you should be able to find them under amblyopia  ("lazy eye"). Years ago,
>there was research that showed that lazy eye occurred  primarily in 
>bottle-fed
>babies.  The thinking was that only the baby's eye  that is farthest from the
>mom's/caregiver's body had the chance to practice  focusing well because the
>eye that was next to the adult's body was too close to  allow focusing.  Lazy
>eye very rarely occurs in breastfed babies, most  likely because they usually
>feed from both breasts (whether at the same feeding  or at alternating
>feedings throughout the day) so both eyes get equal  opportunity to be the 
>"outside"
>eye which can focus.
>     I always wondered if the few breastfed babies who  did develop this
>condition were: a twin who always nursed from his "assigned"  breast; a 
>baby who
>preferred one breast to the point where mom gave up trying to  get him to 
>take
>the other one; a mother who had only one breast that worked well  (cancer, 
>lack
>of ductal development, etc.).


I'll add my n = 1 amblyope sample to Cee's. :-)

My 5-year-old son has amblyopia caused by extreme farsightedness in his 
left eye and normal vision in his right eye (anisometropia). There's no 
drifting or crossing, and never has been, and we probably wouldn't have 
known about it if he hadn't gotten chickenpox shortly before he turned 4.

Since one of the lesions was against his eye and I was concerned about 
potential eye infection, our doc referred us to the pediatric 
ophthalmologist. The eye wasn't infected but the doc noticed a slight 
discrepancy in size between my son's right and left pupils. At a follow-up 
visit two weeks later, we learned that my son had 5/200 vision in his left 
eye and normal vision in his right eye; his current presciption is a 
+6-diopter lens for his left eye. With glasses and atropine therapy, his 
left eye has improved considerably but will likely always need correction.

My son nursed 19 months and although he nursed from both sides, he favored 
my left. Which means he would have been using his left eye to peer at me. 
But that's assuming it worked well enough for that. We don't know when his 
vision began declining, but I suspect it was probably always poor from at 
least toddlerhood. His depth perception always seemed a bit off but we 
thought it was normal little kid klutziness.

His little sister, now a 19-month-old nursling, had her vision checked at 
15 months and it's completely normal.

regards,
Julia

Julia R. Barrett
Freelance Science Writer & Editor
Mom to Sean (5) and Kira (1.5)
Madison, Wisconsin

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