Your baby’s safety is of the utmost importance and with all the hubbub about nursery nightlights possibly causing myopia (near sightedness) in babies, many parents are rightfully concerned.

Why is there all this talk about nursery nightlights used in babies rooms before the age of 2 causing myopia later in life? I think it is a good thing to have all the facts, so that is the purpose of this article.

In 1999 a study was performed in Philadelphia by an ophthalmologist. His findings were the first, and only, that led to this scare. Since his case study, if you can call it that…many more studies have been done, all of them finding that genetics cause near sightedness and not a lit nursery. I am going to display here an excerpt from the news report from CBS on the initial reporting of this first study. You can take a look for yourself at CBS News Reporting On Nursery Light Leading To Myopia

(CBS)  A new study, published in the journal Nature, reports that children who sleep with a night light or other artificial light in their room until the age of two have a higher incident of nearsightedness – also known as myopia — as they get older, CBS News Health Consultant Dr. Bernadine Healy reports.

The Philadelphia researchers asked the parents of 479 children who had been patients at the doctors’ eye clinic to recall the lighting conditions in the youngsters’ bedrooms between birth and age 2.

A total of 172 of the children slept in darkness; 10 percent developed nearsightedness. A total of 232 slept with a night light; 34 percent had become nearsighted. An additional 75 slept with a lamp on; 55 percent developed myopia.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Graham Quinn, the study’s lead author, acknowledged the study does not conclusively demonstrate that low light cause myopia, but he urged parents to provide sleeping infants and toddlers with a dark bedroom — within reason.

In my opinion this study had several flaws, most importantly, not taking heredity into account. The next biggest flaw is that this study was based purely on parents answers and there is no accounting for times that the baby was in the sun without eye protection. From the basis of this study, it is obviously important to keep a sleeping baby’s eyes guarded while sleeping in the daylight, but this factor was never accounted for in any way. I am not discounting the idea that a baby’s eyelids are thin and their eyes need protection, but this whole study seems to be nothing more than a scare tactic, and other studies have been done to find this one completely inconclusive to date. Two studies were done to immediately dispute the findings of the Philadelphia study. Here is the article taken from Faculty Washington Edu.

Two studies (both published in Nature, March 9, 2000) show that using nightlights may NOT contribute to nearsightedness. In the first study, scientists studied 1,220 children (median age, 10.2 years old). The number of children who were nearsighted was approximately the same in different lighting conditions: 20% of the children (84 of 417 children) who slept in darkness were nearsighted; 16.8% of the children (128 of 758 children) who slept with a nightlight before they were two years old were nearsighted; 22.2% of the children (10 of 45 children) who sleep with the room lights on were nearsighted.

The studies appear to contradict the earlier study and suggest that using a nightlight does NOT contribute to nearsightedness. Rather, these data suggest that nearsightedness is related to something inherited from parents. Two reasons may explain the differences between the results of the old and new research:
truthfully? Future research may provide us with more certain answers.

Is this conclusive evidence that nursery nightlights are completely safe for babies under 2 years of age? I do not think it is conclusive in either direction, and should be looked at as a precautionary idea. Parents need not worry themselves about their baby’s safety as long as they are willing to take a few precautionary measures.


1)Keep any source of light in your nursery behind the head of the crib, this will eliminate any chance of light shining directly into your baby’s eyes while sleeping.
2)Your nursery nightlights should put off a soft glow and not glaring light.
3)Make sure that if light comes through baby’s window, that the head of the crib is towards this light source, probably not a bad idea to do this if the sun shines directly through the window also. This way baby must turn around in crib to ever have direct light in eyes.
4)A barrier at the head of the crib will eliminate much direct light, but may cause you to need another light source when looking for a lost pacifier or bottle in the middle of the night.

To get back to the question “are nursery nightlights safe for babies under 2 years of age?” I think the answer is an unequivocal YES! I do believe you need to take precautions, but I believe the precautions that need to be taken with nursery nightlights are probably quite a bit less than when having your sleeping baby in the sunlight or any brightly lit room during the day. Perhaps baby sunglasses will become quite a bit more than a fashion statement in the future. Until there are more conclusive studies, parents can relax a bit and just take heed of the fact that babies are more delicate than us. Although it’s tough to tell that to the mother that just stubbed her toe because her new nursery nightlights only emit a soft glow…