If you are sitting with your child and notice that he or she always has one eye tilted to the side, as if he or she is distracted, or that he or she always squints with one eye when exposed to sunlight, you should pay attention to the fact that this is usually a sign of exotropia. What is esotropia? In simple terms, esotropia is a condition in which the eyeballs are tilted outward. When a child looks at a target with both eyes, one eye is looking straight ahead while the other is tilted outward, like what we commonly call “glancing”. There are many reasons for esotropia, such as: relatively poor brain fusion ability, the ability to control the eyes together, abnormal orbital and extraocular muscle organization, and innervation disorders in the eye collection and separation mechanism. What are the developmental stages of exotropia? Generally speaking, there are several stages in the development of exotropia, namely: exotropia, intermittent exotropia and constant exotropia. 1. Exotropia: refers to the tendency of the eye to deviate outward. When normal, the eyes keep the visual axes of both eyes parallel under the control of fusion function. 2. Intermittent exotropia: A common type of strabismus in children during the developmental and growth stages. These children have weak fusion ability and will develop an occasional more pronounced exotropia, i.e. intermittent exotropia. This kind of children’s eye position is not stable, suddenly positive and suddenly oblique, when focusing on the positive position, mental laxity or visual fatigue will often appear strabismus. Constant exotropia: It is a kind of exotropia that cannot be controlled by fusion, and the child’s eyeball is always in the state of exotropia. The child can be in this state at the onset of the disease, or from intermittent exotropia loss of compensation and develop into constant exotropia. What are the dangers of exotropia? 1, affect the binocular vision function: children with strabismus tend to gaze with only one eye, which will gradually jeopardize the binocular simultaneous vision, the ability to integrate images and stereoscopic vision over time. Children with esotropia are unable to accurately distinguish the distance between the front and back of an object, and have difficulty judging the depth and convexity of objects, so they often stumble or fall when walking. In addition, it may affect the future employment, such as: can not engage in driving, engineers, doctors and other fine work. 2.Triggering amblyopia: infants and young children are in the critical period of vision development, if one eye is in the state of strabismus for a long period of time, it will affect the development of vision, and if it is not corrected in time, it may lead to amblyopia. 3, accelerate the progress of myopia: in the stage of intermittent exotropia, because the child controls the eye position, so both eyes are in a state of fatigue for a long time, in this case, it will accelerate the growth of myopia. 4, affect the physical and mental health: external strabismus will make people feel that the child’s “eyes are not right”, affecting the aesthetic appearance. Moreover, due to the influence of appearance, it will be ridiculed by other children, and even be given some nicknames, which will cast a shadow on the child’s young mind, resulting in withdrawn personality, low self-esteem, autism and other abnormal psychology. Warm tips: Many parents are very worried and anxious when they find their children have strabismus, hoping that they will be treated with surgery immediately. In fact, children’s strabismus should be detected, diagnosed and treated as early as possible, but how to treat it, whether it should be operated or treated conservatively, and when to operate, all of these need to be judged by the doctor according to the child’s own condition and examination results.