Eyeball growth?

Jenie · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:28

Just a quick question, I was wondering whether your eyeballs are the same size throughout your life, or whether they get bigger as you get older, I have checked it out but still not to sure!!

Jen x

Andr3w · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:33

Jenie said:
Just a quick question, I was wondering whether your eyeballs are the same size throughout your life, or whether they get bigger as you get older, I have checked it out but still not to sure!!

Jen x

Yeh they are, well thats what i have always thought/known

lay-z-boy · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:35

They are one of the few things/(only?) that don't grow, from what im aware of.

Hence newborns look like they have big eyes.

masterk · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:39

Thats mad, you cant say a newborn baby has the same size eyeballs as an adult, considering their head is the size of a tennis ball.

lay-z-boy · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:43

masterk said:
Thats mad, you cant say a newborn baby has the same size eyeballs as an adult, considering their head is the size of a tennis ball.

Ok then, i wont.

/tosh

VIRII · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:43

masterk said:
Thats mad, you cant say a newborn baby has the same size eyeballs as an adult, considering their head is the size of a tennis ball.

Tennis ball? Not met many newborns then huh?
The circumference of my daughters head at birth was 38cm.

Jonny69 · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:45

One of those big tennis balls then. Still small.

VIRII · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:47

Jonny69 said:
One of those big tennis balls then. Still small.

LOL. Their heads really aren't all that small, they are a lot bigger than a tennis ball.

Vonhelmet · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:48

I can attest that my baby's eyes are smaller than most big people's eyes.

Still pretty big by proportion, so I doubt they grow much, same as the head in general doesn't grow that much in comparison to the rest of them.

Fantom · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:58

Jonny69 said:
One of those big tennis balls then. Still small.

lol try telling a new mother how "small" a newborns head is

Fantom · 19 Jan 2007 at 22:59

back on topic, im pretty sure they do grow but not much

Saberu · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:03

They will grow in proportion to the head

VIRII · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:06

vonhelmet said:
I can attest that my baby's eyes are smaller than most big people's eyes.

Still pretty big by proportion, so I doubt they grow much, same as the head in general doesn't grow that much in comparison to the rest of them.

They are certainly not in the same proportion as the rest of the body.
A newborn is a little under 1 foot long.
For the sake of simple maths their eyes are not 1/5th to 1/6th of the size of an adults eyes. They are about 2/3 to 3/4 the size (or appear to be)

big_white_dog84 · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:07

They do not get any bigger says my gf who has worked in an opticians for 5 years.
This means the real answer is yes they do.

Fantom · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:08

big_white_dog84 said:
They do not get any bigger says my gf who has worked in an opticians for 5 years.
This means the real answer is yes they do.

lol i like your style

kitten_caboodle · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:35

lol, first result when googled!!

According to the text Ocular Pathology by D. J. Apple and M. F. Rabb (Mosby, 1985) the diameter of a newborn's eyeball is about 18 mm; it increases rapidly during the first year of life, but after this, growth is very slow. The reasons behind eyeball growth are not precisely known. This was discussed in a great book by Richard J. Goss called The physiology of growth (Academic Press, 1978, pp. 191-199). Eye growth in a developing chick can be diminished by introducing a small tube into the eye to drain off intraocular fluid and reduce intraocular pressure (AJ Coulombre, Journal of Experimental Zoology, vol. 133, pp. 211-225, 1956 "The role of intraocular pressure in the development of the chick eye"). When this is done, the eyeball fails to enlarge normally, but the retina nevertheless keeps on growing, so that by the time the chick is ready to hatch from the egg, the eyeball is smaller than normal, but the retina has enlarged to form a highly folded sheet of neural tissue crowded within the eyeball. Lower animals such as fish apparently are able to enlarge their eyeballs and retinas steadily over the course of their entire lives, but this ability is lost in mammals and birds.

Kol · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:39

kitten_caboodle said:
lol, first result when googled!!

Good post, though it entirely depends on the reliability of said result. Peer-reviewed articles only for the win

In this case, it was a peer reviewed investigation, but I'm hesitant to even use google when it comes to something involving research.

Vonhelmet · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:40

VIRII said:
They are certainly not in the same proportion as the rest of the body.
A newborn is a little under 1 foot long.
For the sake of simple maths their eyes are not 1/5th to 1/6th of the size of an adults eyes. They are about 2/3 to 3/4 the size (or appear to be)

Uh... that's what I meant. The eyes are smaller than an adults, but the difference is not as big as with the rest of the baby.

kitten_caboodle · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:43

Mikol said:
Good post, though it entirely depends on the reliability of said result. Peer-reviewed articles only for the win In this case, it was a peer reviewed investigation, but I'm hesitant to even use google when it comes to something involving research.

go knock yourself out....

Google Results for Do Eyeballs Grow?

ooo another

Infant development generally occurs in cephalocaudal (head to tail) and proximodistal (center to periphery) order. Consistent with this, a baby's head and eyes are large relative to the rest of its body parts. At birth, the eyeball is about 65% of its adult length. From here it will increase 50% from 16mm to its adult length of about 24mm.

Kol · 19 Jan 2007 at 23:49

kitten_caboodle said:
go knock yourself out....

Google Results for Do Eyeballs Grow?

ooo another

Eyeball growth?

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