Retinopathy of Prematurity: Practical Approaches to Prevent Blindness

Learn how the screening of ROP can help manage and prevent vision loss in babies

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) affects babies born preterm, before 37 weeks of gestation. Over 15 million babies worldwide are born prematurely each year, and it’s estimated over 20,000 of them will become blind from ROP.

On this course, you will learn how a practical team approach needs to be aligned across neonatal care and ROP screening, and treatment and follow-up healthcare services to help prevent blindness in preterm babies. You will also look at how the risk of ROP and the level of neonatal care can differ between high and low-income settings.

Image © The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust / Poulomi Basu

This course is for healthcare professionals such as obstetric and neonatal nurses, neonatologists, paediatricians, ophthalmologists and clinical officers.

Image © The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust / Poulomi Basu

• Understanding retinopathy of prematurity
• Welcome to the course and week 1
• What is ROP?
• Epidemology and impact of ROP
• Building the ROP team
• Ensuring quality of care for preterm babies
• Preventing retinopathy of prematurity
• Risk factors of preterm birth
• The golden hour after birth
• Preventing ROP in the neonatal intensive care unit
• Ensuring quality of care for preterm babies: The PDSA cycles
• Screening and treatment for ROP
• Principles of screening for ROP
• Managing ROP screening
• Treatment for ROP
• Ensuring quality of care for preterm babies: The PDSA cycles
• Following up premature babies
• Understanding the long term ocular & cerebral complications of preterm birth
• Managing ROP services and establishing programmes
• Ensuring quality of care for preterm babies: The PDSA cycles and Course summary