What the child will end up with depends 90% on genetics and only 10% on chance. The color of the iris is determined by the concentration of melanin (coloring pigment): if there is little of it, the color is blue, if there is a lot - brown, the remaining shades are located between these colors.

Melanin protects the eye from exposure to ultraviolet rays; the fat-like substance cholesterol and the amino acid tyrosine are involved in the process of its formation.

Formation of eye color

Children are born with blue or brown eyes, and after 6 months the color may change due to exposure sunlight and genetic factors. Usually, in brown-eyed babies, the color does not change, and the more melanin accumulates, the darker the color of the iris will be.

By the age of 3–4 years, the baby’s eyes acquire a permanent color that remains for life.

You can see other options in which eye color changes.

It is impossible to predict for sure what eye color a baby will have: each child has one version of the same gene: maternal and paternal (these genes are called alleles). One of them will be dominant (predominant), the other will be recessive.

For example, if mom has blue eyes and dad has light green eyes, the child will have the following probability: 60% - eyes will be blue (since the blue tint is dominant), 40% - light green.

Eye color can be passed down through generations(from grandparents), not only color is also inherited, but also inclusions on the iris.

The shade of eye color is influenced by other genes that are responsible for skin tone and hair color. For example, blond people with fair skin are characterized by light shades, blue eyes are typical.

For representatives of the Negroid race - people with dark skin, dark hair – brown eye color is characteristic.

The gene that is responsible for coloring the iris of the eyes blue or brown is located on chromosome 15; gene that carries information about green and blue color- on chromosome 19. The pigment of the iris of the embryo is formed already at the 10th week of gestation.

Eye color also depends on the following factors:

• Distribution of melanin pigment in the posterior (ectodermal, external) and anterior (mesodermal, internal) layers of the iris;
• Iris fiber density.

Eye color may change in bright light or extreme cold.

In children, the shade may darken and become cloudy after waking up and crying; this phenomenon is called a “chameleon”.

Possible options

Eyes can have the following colors:

Heterochromia

Heterochromia (multiple-colored eyes) is a condition in which the eyes differ in color or the iris has different colors (partial heterochromia).

This feature is individual and natural.- a peculiar play of nature, but it may also indicate some ophthalmological diseases (disseminated melanoma, inflammation of the iris), so it is important to be periodically examined by an ophthalmologist.

It is difficult to predict what eye color a baby will have, since modern science I haven’t fully studied the ongoing processes.

Even the most experienced geneticist will not be able to predict with 100% certainty the shade of the iris, not only because there are a number of reasons that can change the color, but also because there are exceptions to the rules.

It is impossible to make a mistake only if both parents have blue eyes: the baby will definitely be born blue-eyed.

It is unlikely that anyone has encountered a mother who peers with suspicion at the facial features of her baby, but the phenomenon when a father reproaches his mother for the fact that the child has the “wrong” eye color, hair, or blood type is quite common. And this is not surprising, because a woman carries a baby under her heart for 9 months, and there simply cannot be any doubt about her motherhood. Dads are a completely different matter! Any father, with bated breath, peers into the face of a newborn, trying to look for something in common with himself, so to speak, to visually confirm his paternity. Sometimes banal ignorance of the laws of anatomy leads to unnecessary quarrels or even a break in relationships. We really hope that this article will open the eyes of many dads and prevent unnecessary conflicts in the family that have absolutely no basis.

What color are the eyes of newborns?

So, I would like to start with the fact that a newborn’s eye color almost always has a gray-blue tint (with the exception of children of African and Eastern nationalities). The reason for this lies in the absence in the child’s body of a special pigment - melanin, which is responsible for eye color. As the child grows, the color of the eyes may change (the more pigment is formed in the iris, the darker the color will become), if this is what Mother Nature intended, or it may remain the same and only change the shade slightly. You can guess that the child’s eye color will soon darken by the presence of dark inclusions in the iris. Therefore, dad should not start a showdown right in the maternity hospital about the dissimilarity of his son or daughter with his parents in eye color, everything can still change.

Who influences a child's eye color?

There are cases when brown-eyed parents give birth to a blue-eyed child. This exception is quite rare, occurring in only 6.25% of children. Why does this happen?

Each person copies two versions of the same gene: from the father and from the mother.

These two versions of the same gene are called alleles. In each pair, some alleles are dominant over others.

In general, brown eye color is dominant (predominant, overwhelming), and most often the lighter one (recessive allele) does not appear in the presence of the dominant one. A recessive allele can appear if it is paired with the same recessive allele.

However, not only parents, but also grandparents can contribute to modeling the child’s appearance. So, if one of the parents still has a hidden recessive allele, then he may well pass it on to the child. Consequently, brown-eyed parents may give birth to a blue-eyed baby, inheriting this trait through a generation. But the opposite situation is unacceptable: a blue-eyed father and mother cannot give birth to a child with brown eyes.

In general, genetics is a complex thing, sometimes it drives us into a dead end. Therefore, you should listen to your heart and trust your loved one, then all sorts of nonsense will not enter your head. After all, it is much more important: whether the child is healthy, and not what color his eyes are!

A question that many parents ask. However, it is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, since the answer depends 90% on genetic predisposition and 10% on chance.

Only one thing is clear here - the baby will be born with cloudy gray-blue or dark brown eyes.

What color will my child's eyes be?

Almost always, the eyes of newborns have a blue color, which subsequently, starting from 6 months, begins to change and darken as it is exposed to sunlight (although in most children this occurs between the ages of 6 months and a year). Around the age of three or four, the child’s eyes acquire their permanent color that remains for life.

Predicting a child's eye color

Below is a diagram that shows the “chances of success” of a particular eye color (in % ratio) depending on the eye color of the parents.

Also look at the site - determining the color of a child’s eyes by the color of the eyes of the baby’s parents and the color of the eyes of your parents. This is an English-language resource, but it won’t be difficult to figure out what’s what.

How reliable is this? Let's check it together! Please let us know in the comments whether the eye color in reality coincided with the predictions calculated and proposed using these methods.

Inheritance of eye color from a genetic point of view

The color of a child's eyes is determined by the parents' genes, but great-grandparents also contribute to the child's appearance. It turns out that their colors and shades have a polygenic inheritance pattern and are determined by the number and types of pigments in the iris cornea of ​​the eye.

In general, the color of a person’s eyes depends on the amount of melanin in the iris (melanin is also responsible for the color of our skin). In the spectrum of all possible variety of colors, one extreme point will be blue eye color (the amount of melanin is minimal), and the other is brown (the maximum amount of melanin). People with different eye colors fall somewhere between these extremes. And the gradation depends on the genetically determined amount of melanin in the iris.

Genetic studies show that the pigment component of the iris is controlled by 6 different genes. They interact with each other according to certain clear patterns, which ultimately leads to a wide variety of eye colors.

There is an established opinion that a child’s eye color is inherited according to Mendel’s laws - eye color is inherited in almost the same way as hair color: genes dark color are dominant, i.e. distinctive features (phenotypes) encoded by them take precedence over distinctive features, encoded by the lighter color gene.

Parents with dark hair are more likely to have children with dark hair; the offspring of blond parents will be blond; and a child of parents whose hair color is different will have hair whose color will be somewhere in between the parents'.

However, the idea that brown-eyed parents can only have brown-eyed children is a fairly common misconception. A brown-eyed couple may well have a blue-eyed child, especially if one of the close relatives has a different eye color). The fact is that a person copies two versions of one gene: one from the mother, the other from the father. These two versions of the same gene are called alleles, with some alleles in each pair being dominant over the others. When it comes to genes that control eye color, brown will be dominant, however, a child can also receive a recessive allele from either parent.

Let us note some patterns in the inheritance of eye color by a child:

• Your husband and you have blue eyes - 99%, that the child will have exactly the same color or light gray. Only 1% gives the chance that your baby will have green eyes.
• If one of you has blue eyes and the other has green eyes, then the chances of the child having both eye colors are equal.
• If both parents have green eyes, then there is a 75% chance that the baby will have green eyes, a 24% chance of blue eyes, and a 1% chance of brown eyes.
• The combination of blue and brown eyes in parents gives a 50% to 50% chance for the child to have one or the other eye color.
• Brown and green parental eyes are 50% of children's brown eyes, 37.5% of green eyes and 12.5% ​​of blue eyes.
• Both parents have brown eyes. This combination will give the baby the same color in 75% of cases, green in 19%, and only in 6% babies can be blue-eyed.

Some fun facts about eye color

• The most common eye color around the world is brown.
• the most rare color Less than 2% of the world's population has a green eye.
• Türkiye has the highest percentage of citizens with green color eyes, namely: 20%.
• For residents of the Caucasus, blue eye color is the most characteristic, not counting amber, brown, gray and green. Also, more than 80% of Icelandic residents have either blue or green eye color.
• There is such a phenomenon as heterochromia (from the Greek ἕτερος - “different”, “different”, χρῶμα - color) - different color of the iris of the right and left eyes or unequal coloring of different parts of the iris of one eyes.

Now you know what color your child’s eyes will be, and we, in turn, wish that, regardless of the color, there is only happiness and joy in his beloved eyes!

If before the birth of a baby parents are only interested in the gender of their future child, then later they are concerned with one question - what kind of eyes the child will have. The pattern chart will fortunately help determine what eye color they can expect. Determining this requires knowledge school curriculum about recessive and dominant genes, but in the modern information world there is no need to spend hours in libraries, covered with a bunch of books about biology. All you have to do is go online and get the corresponding table.

Despite the fact that even it will not give one hundred percent accuracy in predicting eye color, this does not stop parents. Read more about genetic connection eye colors between relatives and we'll talk in this article.

Eye color - what factors does it depend on?

According to Gregor Mendel's law on the transmission of hereditary characteristics, What is passed on to a child from his parents is not only his appearance or character traits behavior, but also eye color. This pattern can be explained by the structural features of the iris, or more precisely, by the presence of melanin pigment in it and its quantity. This pigment is also responsible for appearance skin and the color of a person's hair.

Note! Studying the spectrum color range, scientists have found that blue eyes, due to a small amount of melanin, in most cases remain at one pole. And due to the large amount of pigment Brown eyes, accordingly, will be located on another. If we talk about all other colors, they are approximately in the intervals between the previously mentioned poles.

You can predict using the necessary table and the results of numerous scientific studies, but such information cannot be called absolutely reliable, so parents should not be surprised later that the results of their calculations did not coincide with the appearance of the newborn. According to statistics, 9 out of 10 babies have blue eyes at birth, but over the years the color of the iris may change. This normal phenomenon, so if your child's eyes gradually change color, don't panic.

Age-related changes are associated with the fact that melanin accumulates in the iris permanent basis up to changing the eyes to a shade determined by genetics. As a rule, such changes are observed as early as 12 months of age, but there may be exceptions. The complete transformation of eye color reaches its final stage, usually at the age of 2 to 3 years, sometimes the process drags on up to 4 years.

What kind of eyes do children have at birth?

The formation of the shade of the moving diaphragm of the baby’s eye occurs in the late stages of pregnancy, but immediately after birth, almost all children explore the world through grey eyes with a slight blue tint. Sometimes newborns have brown or dark, almost black eyes. But, as noted earlier, the original color changes over time, so children do not remain with blue or brown eyes for the rest of their lives.

If with brown-eyed children everything is quite simple - the formation of their permanent color occurs during the first months - then with other colors of the iris everything is much more complicated. As a rule, children's visual organs can change their color until they are 4-5 years old.

On a note! In rare cases (about 1 in 100 children), the eyes are different different shades. This phenomenon is called in medicine. This a rare event, which can be congenital or acquired.

Many parents wonder why their newborn's eyes are not a consistent color. The answer is quite simple: despite the genetic characteristics of the body, the synthesis of the melanin pigment is activated not while the baby is in the womb, but immediately after birth.

From a genetic point of view

The color of the iris is influenced by certain genes (there are only 6 of them). Of these genes, several are dominant, that is, superior to others. Therefore, only those will take superiority external differences, for which dominant genes are responsible. There are other genes that are not as strong as the previous ones. Scientists call them recessive. The presence of weak genes, as a rule, does not appear on a person’s appearance.

Note! Scientists traditionally believe that the genes responsible for light color iris - recessive, and for darker shades - dominant.

It would be wrong to believe that in a family of parents where both mom and dad have brown eyes, the child will be like them in everything. In fact, everything is much more complicated, because the child copies genes from both the father and the mother at the same time. Each pair copied consists of a recessive and a dominant gene, so the child may end up with different traits from their parents.

An external characteristic may not be transmitted by genes immediately, but even after several generations, which is why not only parents, but also grandparents contribute to the formation of the color of the iris. The interaction of genes that are directly involved in the transmission of eye color occurs according to special patterns, thanks to which parents have the opportunity to predict the eye color of the future baby with the highest possible accuracy (more than 90%).

Eye color layouts

You can determine the color of a child’s eyes, taking into account the characteristic qualities of the parents, using a special table for determining the shade. It was developed by scientists based on research statistical research. It is possible that a dark-eyed family will give birth to a baby with blue eyes. But how to determine whether their child will be green-eyed or brown-eyed? The table below will help you cope with this.

Table. Determining the color of the iris.

Mom and Dad's eye color	Baby's eye color (probability percentage)
	Brown – 75%, green – 18.75%, blue – 6.25%
	Brown – 50%, green – 37.5%, blue – 12.5%
	Brown – 50%, green – 0%, blue – 50%
	Brown – 0%, green – 75%, blue – 25%
	Brown – 0%, green – 50%, blue – 50%
	Brown – 0%, green – 1%, blue – 99%

It must be taken into account that all the above values ​​are conditional, since the definition table does not provide shades (for example, gray-blue). Moreover, it cannot be called same colors gray and blue, which only confirms the conventional meaning.

According to Mendel's law, hair color is also inherited, so parents with blond hair are most likely to have a blond child. But if the hair color of the parents is different, then the child’s hair will be a more neutral color, something in between the parents’. Of course, there may be exceptions to this theory.

Diseases affecting color

Sometimes eye color is affected not only by genetic factors, but also by the development of certain diseases. For example, hepatitis or jaundice is accompanied by yellowing of the white areas of the organs of vision, which can cause the iris to become darker. Often, even a common cold or illness in children is enough for the organs of vision to become less expressive and their color to become distorted.

Doctors recommend periodic iridology testing. This diagnostic event, the essence of which is to study the organs of vision and assess the condition of the iris using modern equipment. Many pathologies provoke a change in the patient’s gaze, as well as cloudiness. At the same time, clean and clear eyes may indicate feeling good child.

There is another disease that affects eye color - albinism. Unlike the previously mentioned heterochromia, albinism is not harmless, because in addition to changing the appearance of the patient, the quality of visual functions. Albinos often experience such phenomena as eye hypersensitivity and impaired visual perception. The development of albinism is accompanied by discoloration of the iris of the eye, as a result of which it takes on a red tint. This is due to the presence blood vessels.

If parents notice that their child’s eyes have acquired an unusual appearance or have changed in color, then they should seek advice from a specialist as soon as possible. Not all diseases that provoke such changes are safe for the patient’s body, so they should not be ignored, especially if we are talking about small child. But, as practice shows, the development of serious pathologies or anomalies is determined immediately after birth, when an ophthalmologist conducts an examination in a maternity hospital.

Let's look at some interesting facts related to eye color:

• according to statistics, the majority of the population has brown eyes, and the smallest share, 2% of the total number of inhabitants of the planet, falls on green eyed people. It's also worth noting that most green-eyed babies are born in Iceland or Turkey;
• It is quite difficult to find a person with green eyes in Eastern or Asian countries, but if we talk about people of Caucasian nationality, blue is considered the most common shade there;

• Absolutely all newborns are born with blue eyes, but over time the color develops, which, as a rule, is completed by 3-4 years. In rare cases, the final eye color is formed much earlier. This can be explained by the genetic characteristics of the organism;
• Few people know, but brown eyes are blue, which are covered with brown pigment. Thanks to the methods modern medicine you can influence the color of your eyes, for example, during surgery it can be changed to blue. But such changes will not be reflected in future offspring;

• There is a theory among scientists that blue eyes are the result genetic mutation, which is why all people with blue eyes are united by one common ancestor;
• The red color of the iris of the eyes of albinos is caused not by a change in its color, but by its complete absence. The red color itself appears due to the numerous blood vessels in the organs of vision;
• You can find people with yellow or black eyes, but in fact their iris is green or brown, respectively. This phenomenon is caused by improper reflection sun rays, getting into the eyes.

Using the determination table, you can predict the eye color of your future child with maximum probability. Of course, it is impossible to be absolutely accurate in predictions, because children may initially be born with eyes of different colors.

Video - What color eyes will a child have?

You can study the details in our other article.

The most interesting thing for future parents is to think whether the baby will be a girl or a boy, whose nose the baby will have and what kind of eyes he will have - blue, like his mother's, brown, like his grandfather's, or maybe green, like his great-grandmother's? With gender, it’s somehow simpler; on an ultrasound, if the mother wants, they will most likely tell who will be born, but what about eye color? After all, I can’t wait to imagine how the baby will be born! With appearance, everything is not so simple, but the “mirror of the soul”... You can guess the color of the child’s eyes. A table for determining the shade of the iris exists and will help with this.

Newborn's eyes

What color the baby's eyes will be is determined in the first trimester of pregnancy, or more precisely towards its end, in the eleventh week. But almost without exception, babies are born with only occasionally dark-eyed newborns. This does not mean that the color will not change. By about a year, sometimes even by three to five, the eyes become the way nature intended them, or, if you want, which genes predominate in the baby. The child's eye color changes just in time for this period of life, starting from 6-9 months. Only in brown-eyed people will it become permanent in the first months. It happens that a baby is born with eyes of different colors. This phenomenon occurs in approximately one percent of cases out of a hundred and is called heterochromia.

Melanin, which is responsible for the color of the eyes and is released when exposed to light, is simply not produced in the mother’s tummy. This explains why all newborns have the same. So, don’t torture yourself trying to discern the color of your beloved baby’s eyes. Be patient, you will soon see what the baby is like.

Child's eye color and genetics

Many people remember how they said in biology classes that brown eye color dominates the rest. This, of course, is true, but even if the eyes of both mothers and fathers are the same, there is still a small chance of giving birth to a child with green eyes or with blue iris. So put jealousy aside, turn on your brains and begin to figure out why, what and why. It’s no secret that some couples break up precisely because brown-eyed parents give birth to a bright-eyed child.

Of course, relying on science, you can understand genetics. After all, it is she who gives the answer to the question of what eye color the child will have. There is an agreement that eyes, like hair, are inherited according to the principle of the predominance of genes responsible for dark color. Gregor Mendel, a scientist-monk, discovered this law of inheritance more than a hundred years ago. For example, with dark parents the children will most likely be the same, but with light parents it will be the other way around. A child born from people with different phenotypes may be average in hair and eye color - between both. Naturally, there are exceptions, but these are rare.

Determining eye color

Everything described above can be presented in table form. Using it, everyone will presumably determine the color of the baby’s eyes.

How to determine the eye color of your unborn child. Table

parents eye color			baby eye color
brown	green		brown	green
++			75%	18,75%	6,25%
+	+		50%	37,5%	12,5%
+		+	50%	0%	50%
	++			75%	25%
	+	+	0%	50%	50%
		++	0%	1%	99%

It is not difficult to understand what the child’s eye color will be. The table according to which this can be done confirms Mendel’s law, but the same exceptions to the rules remain in the form of an insignificant percentage. No one knows what nature will do.

By the way, the fact that dark color is dominant at the genetic level has led to the predominance of brown-eyed people throughout the world. According to some reports, the child will not have light eye color at all in the future.

Blue-eyed people, according to scientists, did not exist at all ten thousand years ago. Everyone with this iris shade has the same ancestor, according to researchers.

Has fewer people than any other. Due to the fact that only every fiftieth resident has this shade, there are different times and among various peoples, according to tradition, they were either burned at the stake, or praised and treated with respect, endowing them with witchcraft abilities in both cases. And even today brown-eyed people have to hear that they have evil eye and they can put the evil eye on someone.

Among the various variations of the three main shades of the iris, it is very rare to find people with red eyes from blood vessels. Although they look unpleasant and even scary, they are not to blame for the fact that they were born albinos. Melanin, due to which the irises of the eyes differ in color, is practically absent in such people.

Eyes are the mirror of the soul

And one more interesting fact, some paid attention to it, some did not, but the color of the eyes of most, if not all, light-eyed people changes depending on their mood, well-being, color of clothing, and in stressful situations.

The color of a child’s eyes is no exception. The table above will not tell you about this, and there are no specific rules here. Everything is individual. Basically, when the baby is hungry, the eyes darken. and is capricious - they become cloudy. If she cries, the color is closer to green, and when she is happy with everything, the color is closer to blue. Maybe this is why they say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul.

Many parents of the unborn baby and their relatives try to determine the color of the child’s eyes. The table created for this helps them, of course. But it’s more important that the baby is born healthy. And it is much more interesting to watch how the baby will change and what his eyes, nose, hair will become, and not know in advance. The little one will grow up, and you will see whether he is bright-eyed or vice versa.