Failing to keep follow-up appointments puts your child at risk of blindness.

Usually not. Infants at risk for ROP are followed until 52 weeks after conception. Since most infants are discharged from neonatal intensive care well before that age, in general some exams are still necessary in the weeks following hospital discharge to ensure the best visual outcome for your child.

They are examined either at the bedside or by digital pictures, generally on a weekly basis.

Currently, the standard of care treatment for ROP severe enough to require it is destroying the retina without blood vessels with laser. On occasion, freeze-treatment is used to accomplish the same goal. By destroying the peripheral retina the goal is to save central vision so that the infant can have as normal vision as possible. […]

Yes. Eyes which progress to stage 4 or 5 can go blind. This may happen even when a child is properly screened and is properly treated in a timely fashion.

Yes – in fact most infants do. It is called ” regression ” of the disease, and occurs when the retinal blood vessels grow to cover and nourish the retina.

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) has been divided into five stages. Stages 1 and 2 customarily get better on their own. Some eyes, however, go on to Stage 3 retinopathy of prematurity. Stage 3 ROP exists when these disturbing new blood vessels grow out from the ridge in the retina toward the center of the eye. […]

No. In most infants the ROP will subside (regress) on its own.

No. In most infants (85% of those at risk) the blood vessels finish growing over the surface of the retina as they were supposed to, although finishing the job a few weeks later than the original due date.

It takes a full term (40 week) pregnancy for the blood vessels which will supply oxygen to the retina to fully develop. The blood supply to the retina starts at the back of the eye at 16 weeks of gestation. The vessels gradually grow over the surface of the retina to reach the front edge […]