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Eye Changes While Expecting
Don't Neglect Eyesight During Pregnancy
By Kelly Burgess
Unless you want your once-in-a-lifetime birth experience to be a blur, better pack your glasses for the trip to the hospital – even if you normally wear contacts. Anesthesia and certain other procedures require that contact lenses be removed, and no one wants to squint to see their beautiful newborn.
Paying attention to your eyesight shouldn't just start at the end of your pregnancy. It's not unusual for a woman's vision to change during pregnancy, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Keeping up with any changes in your prescription can help you avoid damage to your eyes.
In her book, Empowered by Empathy: 25 Ways to Fly in Spirit (Women's Intuition Worldwide, 2000), Rose Rosetree writes:
"During pregnancy, my driver's license came up for renewal. Lo and behold, for the first time in 33 years I passed a vision test without glasses. Stunned at the miraculous improvement, I learned that eyesight often changes during pregnancy."
Rosetree, of Arlington County, Va., has a charming, albeit less than scientific interpretation of her eye changes. "As a professional aura reader I wasn't surprised, I merely accepted it as one of the many major and minor miracles in life," Rosetree says. She also credits her grown son's still-perfect eyesight to that foreshadowing via her own improved vision.
As appealing as that explanation is, there is a scientific reason for eye changes in pregnancy. They don't affect everyone, but some percentage of women do report eye and eyesight changes during pregnancy. In Rosetree's case, her vision improved.
More typically, says Dr. Andrea Thau, spokesperson for the American Optometric Association and associate clinical professor of the SUNY College of Optometry, vision worsens due to hormonal changes and increased fluid retention. Some of these changes may include the following:
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