Childhood Nightlights

Some time ago, a study indicated that children who regularly slept with a light on before they reached the age of two exhibited a higher rate of developing myopia, or nearsightedness later in life. A more recent study has contradicted this theory.

"It created quite a stir in the scientific community and the lay press," said vision scientist Jane Gwiazda, Ph.D., referring to last year's study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. "I think a lot of parents have turned out the lights, and I've heard from practicing clinicians that this is the main question they've received from parents since this appeared in May."

Dr Gwiazda and her colleagues at the children's vision laboratory at the New England College of Optometry in Boston conducted their own study. They questioned 213 parents, and combined their answers with 24 years worth of collected information on the visual development of children. The researchers found that children who had slept with night lighting when they were under the age of 2 were not more likely to develop myopia later on. Similarly, a team of Ohio State University researchers reached the same conclusion.

The Ohio State team of researchers tested a group of 1,220 children, whom they were following for a 10-year study on eye development. They found the rates of myopia to be "remarkably uniform" between those children who were exposed to nighttime light and those who were not.

Richard Stone M.D., a pediatric ophthalmologist at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center's Scheie Eye Institute, plans to present more research data at an upcoming vision research conference. He acknowledges the fact that his subjects were drawn from a pool of patients who had come the university for specialty eye care, and may not represent the general population. He also states that his study did not take into account whether nearsighted parents tended to leave lights on more often than those with normal eyesight. Stone also suggests that there may be a small subset of children who may be especially vulnerable to nightlights.

Many pediatricians have decided not to encourage parents to turn of the lights at night, saying that night-lights can calm a frightened toddler in the middle of the night. Suzanne Corrigan, M.D., a pediatrician in Irving, Texas, and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics states, "I've been in pediatrics for 20 years, and surely if there was something that was valid and was significant, it would have shown up by now. The night-light is just a friend. And they help the moms get to their babies without turning on a bright light."