Eye exams are important for catching issues early and keeping your eyes healthy. Unfortunately, not every child gets the chance to have one. Marla is one of the lucky ones whose vision problems were caught early, but her life could have been much different.
Like her mother, father, and maternal grandmother, she was born with congenital cataracts — a clouding of the eye’s natural lens that can render a child blind. Marla’s doctor urged her parents to take her to the National Center for Maternal and Child Health (NCMCH), an Orbis partner hospital in Ulaanbaatar, when Marla was just 19 days old.
At NCMCH, Dr. Shamsiya Murat examined her, confirmed the diagnosis, and knew she had to act quickly. If congenital cataracts aren’t treated when an infant is between six and eight weeks old, the child could suffer permanent vision loss.
Despite her family’s fears, Dr. Murat performed the surgery when Marla was 42 days old—becoming the youngest person in Mongolia at the time to have cataract surgery. Marla’s mother remembers that a few weeks after the procedure, her daughter looked toward her and started to make sounds, she knew that was the first time Marla could see her.
Image gallery: Meeting Marla months after her first surgery.