Blue Light Hazard: are exposure limit values protective enough for newborn infants?

Abstract

Blue Light Hazard is an emerging concern for health of population. Nevertheless, acute exposure to blue rays from artificial light is well taken into account by normative requirements applicable to lamps engineering and risk for general population is low. There is also no evidence for a chronic effect of artificial lighting on retina for general population at radiance below exposure limit values. That said, children in the very first years of life constitute a specific population to consider. On one side, eye anatomy of very young infants is different from elder young people or adults. On the other side, infants can be in close contact with some luminous toys or night lights. This paper presents a first approach for taking into account the specific anatomy of newborn infants’ eyes in blue light hazard evaluation. Results show that differences of crystalline lens transparency, focal length and pupil diameter could induce a significantly higher retinal exposure than for adult.