Refraction in Full-term Babies.

Tim study of refraction in newborn infants may be helpful in understanding the incidence of refractive errors in later years. In this paper, the refractive conditions of 100 newborn infants are reported. Not much work on this subject has been done in the past. Sorsby, Benjamin, and Sheridan (1961) reported the refractive condition of the eyes in the age-group 2 to 23 years, and Hosaka (1963) observed that myopia was present in 5 per cent. and astigmatism in 30 per cent. of full-term newborn infants. He stated that the axes of the astigmatism were around 1800. Duke-Elder (1954) wrote: "At birth all;eyes are .hypermetropic to the extent of 2 50 D to 3 00 D. Myopia is rare at birth although in certain cases it occurs congenitally.. ." He further points out that the origin of myopia from the usual initial state of hypermetropic astigmatism probably dates almost from birth. On curvature astigmatism he is of the opinion that the anomaly is usually congenital. Recently, Graham (1963) examined 98 full-term babies and reported that there was generally hypermetropia of moderate degree. This prompted us to undertake the work of observing refractive conditions in a group ofnewborn full-term infants.