Baby’s Eye Color—A Rainbow-like Palette

Have you ever questioned about what color a newborn baby’s eyes will be? Are all newborn babies’ eye colors the same or different? Do they inherit the eye color from their parents or not? If not, what are the decisive factors that determine what color a newborn baby’s eyes would be? All these questions may have puzzled you from time to time. Today we will tell you the answer: any newborn baby’s eye color is mainly determined by the genes inherited from their parents.

What determines a baby’s eye color?

Different people from different races and countries have different eye colors, ranging from blue, green, brown, black to still many others. However, sometimes even people living in the same place can have total different eye colors. Then why is that? The reason is that what determine eye color are the different amounts and patterns of pigmentation (also known as melanin) in the iris. And furthermore the amount of pigmentation and the pattern of the pigmentation are determined by a person’s genetic makeup. This indicates that a baby’s eye color is originated from the DNA he/she inherits from his/her parents.

A human iris has two layers. And when a baby has pigmentation in both layers, his eye color is brown. When pigmentation occurs in only the back layer, his eyes will present color blue. When a little pigmentation occur in both eyes, his eye color green. And because of the degree of pigmentation in each scenario, the shades of baby’s eye colors may vary. For instance, we can tell that a pair of deep or almost black brown eyes indicate a great deal of pigmentation in the scenario. The known pink eyes are resulted from the total lack of pigmentation, the color being the same as the color of the blood vessels in the back of the eye.

So from the analysis in the previous paragraph we can arrive at the conclusion that a newborn baby inherits the genetics from their parents which directly determine how much and where the amount of pigmentation deposits in his body. We can roughly guess the color of our baby’s eyes by having a look at our own, our and our mates’ and both of our parents’ eye color. Probably, this temporary 6-people group can tell the color of the baby’s eyes. For example, if all the eye colors of these 6 people are brown, the to-be-born baby’s eye color may well be brown. Likewise, if no one in this group has brown eyes, the baby’s eyes are not likely to be brown. Many of us may have realized that now more and more American newborn babies have brown eyes though their parents’ eyes are blue. This is because of the increase of cross-ethnicity marriage. That can be explained by the fact that brown is a dominant gene while blue and green are recessive ones. When an American marry a brown eye, their baby’s eye color would very likely to be the dominant brown.

A baby’s eye color can change over time

A newborn baby’s eye color can change over time with the gradual change of the pigmentation in the eye. It is proved that the pigmentation in the newborn baby has not completely synthesized and as the development of the pigmentation the baby’s eye color will change. We won’t be surprised when a baby born with brown eyes may turn to hazel or amber as time goes by. And in a general way when a baby grows up to the age of half a year or one year, his eye color can be shaped and will remain the same for life. Of cause some exceptional cases still exist.

In conclusion, the eye color of a baby is mainly inherited from his parents and their eye color will probably experience some change as they grows up.