It's rare to meet a mother who is worried about the color of her baby's eyes. After all, she carried him for 9 months, and it takes so much effort to give birth! There can be no doubt about motherhood. Much more often you can see a young father who carefully peers into the baby’s face to make sure that it is his baby.
Blue-eyed child
Even nature often makes children look like their dads so that they can recognize them, but not always. For example, it may be that brown-eyed parents gave birth to a blue-eyed child. Is there cause for concern in this case? Who is bad in the family in this situation?
Eye color in a newborn baby
We can imagine the following situation: after sleep, the baby wakes up, opens its eyes, and the parent sees that they are gray-green. This is absolutely normal. Children are born with gray-green eyes. Their body does not produce a pigment called melanin, which determines the shade of the iris, skin and other parts of the body (for example, there is a lot of it in moles). As the baby grows, the amount of pigment may increase and the color of the iris changes. But it may remain that way if it is genetically programmed. Therefore, dad should not worry if the color of the irises of the father and the newborn do not match. Things can still change.
When does eye color finish?
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Until how many months does a baby’s eye color change? Initially, they are covered with a kind of veil. A few weeks after birth, it gradually begins to fade, and the irises acquire a tint. But gray still dominates. The process takes quite a long time - about 6 months. In some cases, it can end in 4 years.
Can a newborn's eyes become lighter?
Yes, of course, but this only happens in very rare situations. A baby may be born with blue eyes, which will later turn blue. Such changes can only be within one color. That is, dark brown eyes cannot become light blue.
Baby with blue eyes
Important! Scientists have different opinions on this matter. There is a theory that all eyes are brown. Only the intensity of this color can change. All other shades are simply a reflection of objects that falls on the iris. That is, if you put green clothes on a boy or girl, the shade of their irises will sharply shift towards green. Here we are talking not so much about the shade of the iris itself, but about the characteristics of the parent’s perception of the baby’s eyes.
Why and how does a child’s eye color change?
There is a lot of debate on the topic of why a child's eye color changes. But modern science has not yet determined the cause of this phenomenon. A newborn child's eye structure is almost the same as that of an adult. This is a certain system that consists of many optic nerves that transmit information received from the environment directly to the brain. It is not yet possible to fully study such a complex system, but there are some changes in the color of a child’s eyes, from which one can learn something about his physical or emotional state, for example:
- when he wants to sleep, his eyes become cloudy;
- when the baby is hungry, the iris resembles a thundercloud (gray);
- when the baby cries - green;
- when the baby is absolutely healthy - sky blue.
As mentioned earlier, during the first 4 years of life, the child’s eye color changes and gradually becomes constant. Don't worry if it differs from your father's or mother's at the same time, because over time the color of the iris will still change.
The main types of eye colors in a child
What determines the sex of a person’s child at conception?
There is a special table that allows you to determine the future shade of a child’s irises based on what it is like for mom and dad. It is based on the characteristics of their biology. The first column is the color of the parents' irises.
Child with light irises
For example, a brown-eyed baby is most likely to be born to parents whose irises are the same color. But even if one of them has a dominant brown shade, the likelihood of having a son or daughter with blue eyes is quite high. The following three eye color combinations show the probability ratio with which parents will have a baby with a certain shade of irises.
Probability ratios based on iris colors
| Parents | Brown | Greens | Blue |
| Brown + Brown | 75% | 18,75% | 6,25% |
| Green + Brown | 50% | 37,5% | 12,5% |
| Blue + Brown | 50% | 37,5% | 12,5% |
| Greens + Greens | less than 1 percent | 75% | 25% |
| Green + Blue | 0% | 50% | 50% |
| Blue + Blue | 0% | 1% | 99% |
Thus, a blue-eyed baby can be born, no matter who the parents are. The probability of brown-eyed parents giving birth to a child with a light shade is quite low, but it is sufficient to say that such a situation is quite likely. For every 2,000 couples, there will be 25 light-eyed babies, even though the parents have brown irises.
Why do brown-eyed parents have blue-eyed children?
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Why do brown-eyed parents have blue-eyed children? It's all about genetics. Two versions of the same gene are passed on to the child. One of them is inherited from dad, the other from mom. These versions are called alleles.
One of them is dominant, and the other is recessive. The dominant gene always makes itself felt. If two recessive genes encoding one eye color are lost (the blue tint of the iris is this characteristic), then it appears. The gene for brown irises is considered dominant. That is, if a couple has a gene responsible for a different color, then brown eyes will still appear.
What else does this factor depend on?
The gene can be passed on by grandparents. If one of the parents has a recessive gene that encodes the blue color, received from relatives, then he can pass it on to his offspring. But the reverse situation cannot exist. You should be wary if blue-eyed parents give birth to a brown-eyed child. But this possibility also exists, albeit small.
Beautiful baby
However, it is impossible to reliably predict what eye and hair color a child will have. The reason is that in real life this characteristic is determined by a large number of genes.
Here the question arises as to how appropriate such actions are. In order to study the genotype and phenotype (appearance, for example, whether the child will be dark-haired or not, what shape of the nose will be) of a boy or girl who has not yet been born, a doctor takes amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman, and this procedure is associated with risks. Therefore, it is prescribed only if there are suspicions of genetic pathologies in infants.
If a child's irises have intermediate pigmentation (for example, gray and green), this indicates that a number of genes provide for the presence of melanin in the irises, while others do not.
In addition, a mutation is possible in the prenatal period or even during life. DNA changes constantly, and humans are unable to predict in advance which genes will be changed. Therefore, it is possible that even a blue-eyed parent can give birth to a brown-eyed child. The table above does not claim to be 100% accurate.
Genetics also contains the concept of modification variability. This is when the degree of manifestation of some phenotypic trait depends on the conditions. In fact, any gene does not set a specific amount of melanin, but a range of its values.
Why are all children born blue-eyed?
The first question that arises among the relatives of a newborn is: who does the baby look like?
Blue-eyed baby (Photo: Fotolia.com)
Immediately after birth, mom begins to peer into the tiny face of the little man, dad tries to find his own features, looking at the baby through the window of the maternity hospital. However, do not forget that a newborn does not always look the same as on advertising brochures. The baby may have an irregularly shaped head, sometimes even with some deformities. This is fine. After some time, the swelling will subside and everything will return to normal. Of particular interest is traditionally the color of the baby's eyes - most often a child is born with blue eyes. Why is this happening? Does eye color change?
How does the organ of vision work in babies?
The structure of a newborn's eye is similar to that of an adult. This is a kind of camera - a system that includes optic nerves that conduct information directly to the brain, and specifically to those parts of the brain that perceive and analyze what is “photographed.” The eye consists of a “lens”—the cornea and lens—and “photographic film”—the sensitive shell of the retina.
However, despite the fact that a child’s eye is identical to an adult’s organ of vision, it is not yet capable of fully functioning. A newborn's visual acuity is reduced; he simply senses light, nothing more. But gradually, with development, the child’s visual acuity increases, reaching 50% of the adult norm by the age of one.
During the first week of life, doctors test the newborn's vision by the reaction of the pupils to light. In the second week of life, the baby can focus his gaze on a specific object for several seconds. Don't forget to visit an ophthalmologist when your baby is one month old! At two months, the baby's gaze becomes stable. By the age of six months, the baby is able to distinguish simple shapes, and by one year - drawings.
What does color depend on?
The color of the iris depends directly on the amount of melanin, a pigment found in the iris of the eye. Despite the fact that a baby is almost always born with bright or light blue eyes, the final eye color is formed by 2-3 years, when the melanin pigment appears. Therefore, the initially light eyes of children gradually become brown, green or gray. The darker the baby's eye color, the more melanin has accumulated in the iris. By the way, the amount of melanin is genetically determined. Research has shown that there are more brown-eyed people in the world than light-eyed people, and the reason for this is the genetic dominance of traits associated directly with a large amount of melanin. That is why if one of the baby’s parents has dark pelvises, and the other has light ones, then there is a high probability that their child will be brown-eyed. However, it also plays a role what eye color the grandparents on both sides had. Genetics is a serious science, everything is according to the laws of nature.
Reasons for different eye colors in children
Sometimes parents may notice that the baby's irises have a slightly different shade. In this case, we can talk about heterochromia. This phenomenon occurs quite often. One eye is blue and the other is brown. Heterochromia is caused by the fact that one of the irises around the black pupil produces less melanin compared to the other.
Heterochromia is divided into several types:
- Full. The color is fundamentally different.
- Sectoral. One eye has two colors distributed in different proportions across the iris.
- Central. The iris is divided into several rings, each of which has its own color.
If a child has different eyes, this indicates both genetic characteristics and an acquired characteristic. Heterochromia may indicate some diseases, but in most cases it is not caused by pathologies. There have simply been mutations in the genes that are responsible for the amount of melanin in the eye.
Important! Different eye colors can be passed on to offspring provided that the DNA has changed at conception.
If heterochromia is acquired, it can occur due to injury, problems with innervation or inflammation.
Thus, if the baby was born with a different eye color, you should not worry and suspect your soulmate of cheating. It happens. Moreover, a person’s eyes can change even in adulthood. There are known cases when children's irises were gray, and then shifted slightly in color towards green.
What factors affect eye color?
The color of the iris is formed in the fetus during the formation of the main pigments of the iris.
They contain:
- chromatophores;
- melanin.
Interesting! Scientists have found that the blue color of the eyes in the fetus is caused by a violation of melanin synthesis. When a large amount of pigment is produced, the child’s eyes turn brown or hazel.
Over the millennia, the mutation has spread among people of different skin colors, hair, and even representatives of the Negroid race can give birth to children with bright blue eyes. The mutated gene responsible for the blueness of the iris is not recessive. Therefore, when sex cells merge to give birth to a new life, it can be suppressed by a dominant gene.
Because of this, there are many more people with brown eyes in the world. When two dominant genes that carry information about brown color meet, a brown-eyed child is born. If, when male and female cells merge, recessive genes are combined, then the child will receive light, bright eyes.
