Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP)

Host: Babies are born and the timing is premature and then make an ophthalmology in the hospital maybe even a month later, why is that?

Dr. Steven Rosenberg: The blood vessels in the back of the eye are normally growing until normal full term of 40 weeks after conception. So when a child is born premature, the blood vessels in the back of the eye have not grown in fully. As the child is growing outside the womb when they are premature, sometimes his blood vessels start to grow abnormally and that's a condition called Retinopathy of Prematurity or ROP for short.

When a child has ROP most of the time those blood vessels that were abnormal will go back to be normal on their own. However, sometimes they will get worse and continue to get worse. Sometimes you need to treat with laser or have other more involved surgery in order to try to save the vision of the patient. Sometimes even in spite the best treatment the vision will not be good in the child. However, most of the patients that are treated with laser end up having good vision.


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