By Steve Roberts 

Glasses for children  - or contact lenses - may be an unplanned but desirable consequence of letting them play on the new Nintendo 3DS gaming system released in the UK today. The advent of "go-anywhere, glasses-free 3D" is now here but with it come questions about 3D's safety, especially for children under the age of seven whose eyes may still be developing and susceptible to techniques that alter the way our eyes capture two discrete images for the brain to render as one in 3D. Unfortunately for parents, advice being provided by the 3D equipment manufacturers and optical profession appears to be conflicting. To compound the problem, even amongst the optical profession there are conflicting views.

"The 3DS could be a godsend for identifying children under 6 who need vision therapy," said Dr. Michael Duenas, Associate Director for Health Sciences and Policy for the American Optometric Association (AOA). A child who cannot see the 3-D effect on the 3DS may have a vision disorder such as amblyopia ("lazy eye") or subtler problems that can cause problems with reading. 3D systems can help isolate problems that have to do with the way the eyes move which are often not caught by eye charts and which are much easier to treat successfully if detected before age 6 when development of the visual system in our brains is largely complete. Early detection of eye problems which can lead to successful treatment involving contact lenses or glasses for children  can ensure such problems do not progressively worsen making later treatment more difficult.

However, the American Academy of Opthalmology (AAO) is less convinced that young children with problems would notice any difference when playing with the Nintendo 3DS. Indeed, the AAO seems closer to the more cautious views expressed by Nintendo itself and subsequently by Samsung who manufacture 3D TVs whereby parents are advised to restrict 3D gaming or TV viewing activity for their young children. Nintendo's statement says: "there is a possibility that 3-D images which send different images to the left and right eye could affect the development of vision in small children." However, the AOA suggest this may be motivated by the desire to avoid litigation if any problems arose rather than being based on clinical evidence and believe that the 3DS will help identify problems sooner than might otherwise happen allowing appropriate corrective contact lenses or glasses for children  to be prescribed.

Check if your child is suitable for overnight ortho-k corrective contact lenses .