How to tell if your baby has Strabismus or Cross Eyes

Strabismus is the medical term to define the condition when the human eyes are not looking straight in front. It may appear that the eyes give a cross eyed look about them. The condition has been known to be very common in babies under 6 months old however it can affect babies and young children. There are two types of "squint" dependent upon the direction of the eye when looking at it. A Convergent Squint means that the eyes are directed inward whilst a Divergent Squint refers to when the eyes are looking to the sides or away from centre.


In babies under 6 months old (roughly), it is common that their eyes will often appear to wander from various objects that they have in their focal vision. This is perfectly normal as the babies eyes are still developing and their eye muscles are strengthening. Quite often these wandering eyes will be intermittent but when it occurs all the time it could be a constant Strabismus. Once the baby is older than 6 months, the wandering eye should have ceased and they should be able to focus a lot better on objects. In either example (constant Strabismus or older than 6 months), if your baby still appears to have the wandering eye then it might be recommended to be discussed and presented to your doctor.

Depending upon the severity of the Strabismus, the doctor can recommend several courses of treatment. These can include glasses (spectacles), and quite commonly the use of a patch placed over the good eye so the weaker eye has to work to focus on the objects in sight. Over time this helps to strengthen the eye muscles and has been known to assist in cases of Strabismus. In addition, eye exercises which involve lots of hand-to-eye coordination can be administered however they are often only used when the child involved is able to understand and comprehend the exercise in question.

Finally, the worse case scenario is to have surgery in which there tends to be two techniques considered. The surgeon may take the eye muscle and attach it to a different part of the eyeball or they may deem it necessary to shorten the muscle simply by cutting a part of it away. In the majority if not all cases, surgery is only recommended once all other forms of treatment have been proven ineffective.