A mother is supporting a campaign calling for more funding for sight saving research after her daughter was born with sight problems.

The Fight for Sight charity is launching its campaign this week as it is currently only able to support one out of every eight research proposals it receives due to lack of funding.

Catherine Parsi, from St Albans, is supporting the campaign for more funding after giving birth to twins, Sienna and Joshua, who were premature at 28 weeks.

As they were due to be discharged after many weeks in hospital, doctors discovered Sienna’s eyes hadn’t formed correctly.

Her condition is called retinopathy of prematurity and she has only a small pocket of light perception in her left eye.

Now at the age of four, she relies on a white cane when out and about.

Ms Parsi said: “Without support or funding, there is no research. Without research, there is no hope for Sienna and so many others living with sight loss.”

Fight for Sight’s chief executive, Michele Acton, added: “Research funded by Fight for Sight has benefitted so many people but we know we can do more – and we want to.”

The charity is funding research to stop sight loss caused by both common and rare eye diseases and conditions.

These include age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, inherited eye diseases and the causes of childhood sight loss.

Research that has been funded by Fight for Sight has resulted in the identification of new genes responsible for glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, keratoconus and other corneal disorders, and Nance-Horan syndrome.

It has also helped provide the world’s first clinical trial of a treatment choroideremia, an inherited condition that causes blindness in men.