What Causes Retinopathy of Prematurity?

Inside the womb, a baby’s retinal blood vessels begin forming around 16 weeks of pregnancy and continue to grow until after birth. When a baby is born too early, this process is interrupted, which can cause the vessels to grow abnormally. Babies born before 31 weeks of gestation or weighing less than 1500 grams are at the highest risk.

ROP doesn’t cause any visible symptoms in newborns at first. The only way to detect it is through an eye examination performed by an ophthalmologist.​

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When ROP develops, one of the three things can happen:

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1. In most babies with ROP, the abnormal blood vessels will heal on their own - usually during the first year of life.

 

2. In some babies, the abnormal blood vessels heal only partially. In these infants, nearsightedness, lazy eye, or a wandering eye often develops. Glasses may be required in early life. In some cases a scar may be left in the retina, resulting in vision problems that are not entirely correctable with glasses.

 

3. In the most severe cases, the abnormal blood vessels form scars, which pull the retina out of its normal position in the back of the eye. This problem results in a severe loss of vision.

 

Fortunately, there is treatment to minimize severe vision loss. Occasionally, despite all treatment, this condition can lead to blindness. ROP is well-known to progress rapidly (within days). Missing even one examination can result in disease progression and vision loss. Missed examinations are a leading cause of bad outcomes. It is critically important that the baby undergoes the eye examination at the scheduled time to identify vision-threatening disease in a timely fashion and treat it.