Harry Potter helps to get children wearing glasses but trends have drawbacks. Making sure your child is correctly fitted for glasses will prevent problems later in life. Elaine Edwards reports.
Harry Potter and Inter Milan soccer star Edgar Davids have made wearing glasses trendy - a blessing for any parent who discovers their child needs spectacles.
But parents need to be wary of buying their kids cool specs without asking their optician or optometrist the right questions, says one Dublin-based professional.
Dispensing optician Helen Carroll of Carroll Opticians in Dundrum, says that, in many cases, children are being prescribed frames that simply are not designed for them and which may do more harm than good in the long term.
"We've been getting increasing numbers of children coming to us from consultants around the country, from as far as Cork and Athlone and Mullingar," she says.
"Children are being fitted with spectacles that are really 'scaled-down' versions of adult frames. Very few manufacturers actually make frames to fit children. They tend to follow the fashion trend and make things like Barbie or Action Man frames.
"It's a constant battle I have with our suppliers to get frames that actually are made to fit kids, that they don't just mass produce frames to suit whatever the latest trend is, that they take an interest in making frames with sides that stay on.
"Most parents want their kids to fit in and they want the children to have glasses that look like 'normal' glasses. They're getting fitted with spectacles that look quite cool, but they are optically useless. They are fitted with the right prescription, but the frames that are 'in' at the moment are very small and very trendy and very square.
"The lenses are generally quite thick and heavy as well because the glasses tend to be quite strong when they are small, so the specs are slipping down to the end of their noses. The kids are looking over the top, the squint worsens and parents go back to the consultants and get strips torn off them because the glasses are not fitting correctly."
"Children have little or no bridge on their nose, they have chubby little cheeks, they have very wide heads and they have very short space between the front of the eye and the back of the ear point. Glasses to fit children are not the same as adult frames - they are just not the same design of frame at all.
"Children are losing the ability to have perfect vision later in life because their glasses are not working."
Carroll believes badly fitting frames can cause problems with the child's facial structure.
"It can damage the bridge, it can damage the ears where the sides pull the ears out and they can end up with 'fan' ears or a damaged septum."
Carroll estimates that of almost 300 opticians' practices in the State, that only around 40 fit children on "a really regular basis", simply because the extra time and back-up service required is "an unattractive proposition".
"We are all trained to fit children, but some opticians have gone that extra mile to learn a little bit more about the specialised frames available for children and they have taken the time to train their staff about the important points to look out for in children's spectacles. But in general, there is no specialised training available."
She says she is "not trying to run down" the major chains or her colleagues in any way, but feels that children don't always get the attention they deserve at an optician's practice that depends "largely on volume" or on discounting frames.
Dr Martin O'Connor, consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin, says he and his colleagues would like opticians to re-examine how they fit children for frames. He says glasses for babies are "excellent" but that frames for older children often don't suit their needs.
"Children's glasses, when they are prescribed, are often for fairly important things that require the glasses to be worn full-time and really well - things like turns in the eye and casts of the eyes. It's very important that the glasses fit properly for the comfort of the child. And we also find that when they're fitting properly and worn well, they don't break as often. "
He does not believe, however, that he has ever seen a child where actual damage has been done to his or her eyesight through wearing glasses incorrectly.
"I think that's often made a lot of, but I don't think so. You can in theory, if they are wildly out of synch all together, but I've never actually seen it.
"Opticians in this country are very good and they are on the ball with refraction and they get it right most of the time as far as I can see, but the problem is the frame itself and maybe the choice they're limited to."
Helen Carroll says the most important thing is that parents get good follow-up advice after their children have been fitted for glasses. "If the child's specs start to slip down their nose, they must come back in straight away - the child cannot be allowed to walk around with the glasses at the end of their nose."