Estropia is a type of eye misalignment. In this medical condition, the eyes appear to be “crossed”. One of the eyes deviates inward towards the nose while the other fixates normally. Congenital esotropia is one of the types of esotropia. “Congenital” literally means from birth. Most of the children afflicted with congenital esotropia are born with misaligned eyes at birth. It is generally observed that only 23% of infants are born with aligned eyes.
During the neonatal period, either of the eyes actually turn outward. The two eyes are gradually coordinated within the first 3 months. As the nose bridge is not fully developed in infants, they appear to have esotropia. This simulated or false indication of an inward turning is referred as epicanthus. The bridge of the nose gradually narrows down as the infant grows. This makes the eye appear normal as the white of the eye (sclera) is more prominent on the inner side.
True congenital esotropia is present in very few children. It usually appears in infants between 2-4 months. Most infants continue to have this inward turn even when they reach adulthood. They generally cross fixates (use either eye to look in the opposite direction). The left eye is used to look toward the right side and the right eye is used to look toward the left side. It is very difficult to treat this condition with non-surgical methods like glasses and vision therapy.
Surgery is recommended in those cases where the inward turn of the eye happens constantly and it is present to a large extent. Post-surgery, the two eyes might look normal but the normal two-eyed vision has not yet been achieved. Therefore, certain exercises are recommended to enhance binocular vision. For example, 3D depth perception, eye teaming, stereoptic vision and eye tracking.
