About Your Child's Visit

Thank you for choosing Eye Consultants of Northern Virginia, PC for your child’s medical eye care. ECNV is one of only 3 private ophthalmology practices in all of NOVA with subspecialty trained pediatric surgical ophthalmologists. Our doctors specifically focus on younger aged children who are at risk of abnormal visual development (amblyopia) or children with strabismus (misalignment of the eyes). 

Pediatric ophthalmology is a subspecialty of ophthalmology that focuses on children’s ocular medical care and the process of diagnosing and treating eye conditions that develop in children. A child’s eye is very different from an adult eye. Developmental eye problems can hinder good vision for life. 

At ECNV, our doctors perform medical eye examinations on children from birth (including premature infants) until age 18, usually upon referral from their primary care optometrist or pediatrician. Our doctors also work with area neonatal intensive care units in the ocular care and management of premature babies.

As such, our doctors have limited availability and wait times to see our doctors for annual exams (non emergent) can be approximately 3-6 months. Urgent and emergency appointments are available within 1-2 days. If your appointment is rescheduled, we will do our best to reschedule in a timely manner depending on the urgency.

Our doctors provide more than vision tests, so our exams are more in depth and take longer than a “regular” or “routine” eye exam. During a pediatric medical eye examination, we perform:

• a sensorimotor exam to check for eye alignment & 3-D vision
• various tracking and fixation tests
• various refractive measurements before and after dilation (ie checking for glasses)
• evaluation of the anterior structures of the eye
• measurement of eye pressure
• Your child’s eyes will be dilated for 2 reasons:
  • To look at your child’s retina and optic nerves using a lens and a light source.
  • To relax your child’s focusing power to get the best idea of their need for corrective lenses & what strength. This typically takes 30-60 minutes. 
  • Without dilation, a child can continually adjust their eye focus power. This is like trying to measure a child’s height while doing jumping jacks!  

Total exam and visit time can take up to 2.5 hours. Please come prepared with snacks & entertainment. Your visit will be billed to medical insurance as we are medical (MD) doctors and do not take vision insurance.

Lastly, we will offer sunglasses on the way out, as bright lights may bother your child’s eyes after the dilating drops. It is safe for your child to return to school after a visit but be sure to tell the teacher their eyes will be blurry for a few hours. The dilating drops can keep the pupils dilated for as long as 24 hours, so don’t be alarmed if your child still seems dilated even the next day.

ECNV Optical