What time does the child's eye color appear? What color are the eyes of newborns. There are certain inheritance rules

How does eye color change? Are there methods for determining the color of the iris? At what age can you know for sure about it? These questions concern many parents. It becomes especially curious when dad and mom have different colors of the iris.

Why does eye color change?

Hue directly depends on a special pigment - melanin. When babies are born, it is practically absent. However, after a few days, melanocytes begin to become more active due to the body's adaptation to environmental conditions, and the pigment accumulates in the iris. If there is little melanin in the body, the color of the eyes in newborns will be light, and if there is a lot, dark.

What affects it?

The color of the iris depends on heredity: the genetic set of parents and close relatives determines the intensity of melanin accumulation. Scientists can predict the color of an infant's iris thanks to Mendel's law. Its essence is that dark pigments are dominant genes.

There are certain inheritance rules:

If the father and mother have dark eyes, it is highly likely that the child will be born brown-eyed or black-eyed.
Light-eyed parents endow the baby with the same eyes.
If the mother or father is the owner of dark eyes, and the other parent is light, then the child may take either a dark or intermediate color of the iris.

The nationality of the parents and skin color are also important. If the father and mother, for example, are of Asian appearance, their child will inherit dark eye color. And among native Europeans, a baby with bright eyes is most often born. Nationality and heredity determine the amount of pigment in the iris, which is why the baby acquires one or another amount of melanin.

Features of eye color in newborns

What color are the eyes of newborns? When a baby is born, the color of his eyes is cloudy blue-violet or blue-gray, and in very rare cases dark. During this period, it is difficult to say what shade the iris will acquire.

Turbidity can be explained by the fact that in the womb the child did not need vision. After birth, the baby begins to adjust to changes in the environment, and over time, the eyes gradually clear up, adjusting to daylight. Then there is an increase in visual acuity, synchronization of the work of the eyes with the brain.

You should not wait for a quick establishment of eye color, as melanin accumulates slowly. At first, the shade of the iris will constantly change, and this is not a cause for concern. Complete accumulation of pigment lasts up to several months or years.

How to determine the color?

When a baby is born, many parents begin to wonder what shade their baby's eyes will have. The amount of melanin is determined before birth and is laid at the end of the first trimester of pregnancy.

There are patterns that will help parents predict the color of the eyes of babies:

If both parents have blue irises, in 99% of cases a child is born with blue eyes.
If the father and mother have brown irises, in 75% of cases the baby will be brown-eyed, in 18% - green-eyed, and in 7% - blue-eyed.
If both parents have a green iris, in 75% of cases the newborn will be with the same shade, in 24% with blue, and in 1% with brown.
If one parent has blue eyes and the other has green eyes, then the baby will inherit either a blue iris or a green one.
If one of the parents has green eyes and the other has brown eyes, the child should be brown-eyed in 50% of cases, green-eyed in 37%, and blue-eyed in 13%.
If the father or mother has a dark iris, and the other parent has a blue one, the baby will be born either brown-eyed or blue-eyed.

Of course, such patterns are conjectural, and in some cases a child inherits eye color in spite of them.

Gradually, when the pigment finishes its accumulation in the iris, you can accurately determine what color the baby will have. If after 6 months the shade of the iris does not change from blue-gray, with a high degree of probability it can be assumed that the child will become light-eyed. If after six months the color of the eyes begins to darken, most likely the baby will be brown-eyed.

There are cases when a baby has a congenital lack of pigment in the iris, which is why the child has a reddish eye color. You should not be afraid of this, this phenomenon is called albinism and does not pose a threat to the baby's organ of vision. The red iris is due to the translucence of blood vessels. In an adult albino, the change in eye color occurs to a light blue tint.

When does eye color start to change?

This process is different for every child. Most often, the shade of the iris changes during the first year of life. However, for some babies, it may take longer. It happens that the color of the eyes in newborns changes several times, which is explained by the slow production of melanin. Often, the iris takes on the final shade only when the child reaches 3-4 years of age, when the pigment production in the organ of vision is completed.

The change in the color of the iris is clearly visible in fair-haired children: six months after birth, light eyes can remain the same or change quite seriously, and in dark babies they become either brown or black. Around this age, you can judge the further shade.

Heterochromia in newborns

There are times when the body begins to produce melanin incorrectly: either it is produced in excess or in insufficient quantities. The baby's eyes take on different shades. Therefore, 1 eye can be blue, and the other - brown. This phenomenon is heterochromia, or uneven coloration of the iris. This condition is quite rare: approximately 1% of the world's people have it. As a rule, uneven coloring is inherited.

Many parents seriously begin to worry about the health of their baby, but this feature in no way violates visual acuity, and the baby perceives all colors well. This only tells how melanin was produced. Over time, the color of the iris may even out, but sometimes the eyes do not change, and a different color remains until the end of life.

There is a so-called partial heterochromia, characterized by an uneven distribution of pigment in the iris, which looks like areas of alternating pigmented and non-pigmented areas.

With heterochromia, it is recommended to be observed by an ophthalmologist, since in very rare cases this condition can lead to the development. Within 1 year of life, you need to be examined by an ophthalmologist several times, and subsequently come for scheduled examinations.

Eye color cannot be accurately predicted, despite the presence of certain patterns. The amount of pigment the organ of vision always inherits individually. There are cases when a child is born with a violation of pigment production: albinism or heterochromia. There is no need to be afraid of these features, since they do not affect visual acuity.

If parents want to know what color of the iris their baby has inherited, they will have to wait at least six months. During this time, the color of the eyes changes more than once until melanin is fully produced.

Useful video about eye color

Most newborns, regardless of what eye color their parents have, are born with unusual blue eyes. This shade is not pure, but slightly cloudy because the baby is just starting to get used to our world. Over time, the beautiful blue of the eyes of babies begins to change to a genetically predetermined color. When does eye color change in newborns? Why is this happening, and are such changes harmful to the child's vision?

How many times have you been surprised, looking at your own or parental childhood photos, seeing blond strands instead of the usual dark hair. And those cute pictures of babies with sky blue eyes? Why do children's hair darken over time, and their eyes change color?

The color of the eyes, skin and hair of any person is determined by the pigment melanin, which is produced under the influence of ultraviolet radiation. Since there is clearly not enough light for the baby in the mother's belly, when the baby is born, his eyes and hair are minimally colored. Most newborns in the European part have blue eyes, which later, under the influence of melanin, can change to gray, green or brown based on the set of genes that they inherited from their parents.

If a high level of melanin is genetically determined - for example, a child is born from dark-skinned or dark-skinned parents with brown eyes - his eyes can be just like mom and dad.

Sometimes nature fails, and far from fair-skinned couples get albinos - children with pale skin, blond hair and eyes. In the body of such newborns, the processes of melanin production are completely absent. Such diseases are not treated.

Melanin plays a protective role in our body. It is produced under the influence of UV rays and protects our tissues from their influence. The more melanin is released in the cells, the less a person is exposed to harm from ultraviolet radiation. Naturally dark-skinned people with a high level of pigment almost do not burn on the beaches, and pale-skinned people, whom nature has deprived of a sufficient amount of melanin, constantly hide from the sun.

What eye color can babies be born with?

The color of the child's eyes is laid as early as the 11th week of intrauterine development and is mainly inherited from the parents. But the true shade in children does not appear immediately, the eyes will acquire the proper color only when the level of melanin becomes sufficient.

European parents most often give birth to children with blue eyes. Over time, it can smoothly change to gray, green, brown or remain blue.

If the level of melanin in newborns is initially quite high due to a genetic predisposition, then children immediately look at the world with brown eyes. But still, their color sometimes changes for a while due to fluctuations in the amount of pigment, and then returns to the present.

The timing of the final establishment of eye color

The shade of bright eyes, even of adults, often changes depending on the mood of a person: they can lighten and darken in the same color range when he is happy or angry. The same thing happens with babies: if the baby is hungry, his eyes turn gray, when he cries, they turn green, when he wants to sleep, they become covered with light turbidity, and if everything is fine, they will be sky blue.

But the color of the eyes in children can become different not only from the emotional state. Gradually, as melatonin levels rise, newborns' eyes change—and often more than once, until they regain their true color. They can turn gray, lighten, darken, turn blue again - depending on fluctuations in the pigment content in the body. These changes are superficial and do not affect the structure of the eye itself, that is, they cannot harm the baby's vision.

There are no strict limits on how long the final change in eye color in a child should take. For some, melanin is produced quite quickly, and by 3 months they acquire their real eye color. So, in newborns with genetically inherent brown-eyedness, the pigment is produced faster, and by the above period, their eyes really acquire the color inherited from their parents.

In other newborns, the eyes can change their color 3-4 times until they reach the genetic shade. This happens due to fluctuations in the production of melanin and does not pose any danger to the child's vision.

Most often, the color of the eyes of newborns finally changes by 6-9 months, during this period the production of melanin in the child's body is especially high. But there are children who, up to 3-4 years old, retain the eye color given by nature at birth. This is considered the norm.

Sooner or later, a change in eye color in a child will occur if there are hereditary prerequisites for this. A slight delay in terms does not indicate any deviations if the iris is evenly colored and the same color in both eyes.

Possible deviations

Sometimes it happens that the iris in children is colored unevenly or the eyes have a different shade. This phenomenon is called heterochromia and is associated with abnormal pigment content. Its quantity may be insufficient or, conversely, overexcessive, and such failures in the child's body may occur due to heredity or some kind of disease.

At routine examinations, children's ophthalmologists carefully study the color of the irises of newborns and, if heterochromia is suspected, they will prescribe the necessary therapy to correct the production of melanin in the baby's body.

Probably, all parents noticed that at birth, the baby's eyes are light blue or light gray. However, they change their color over time. In our article, we’ll talk about when children’s eye color changes and why this happens.

Most often, the color of the eyes of the baby changes after 8-10 months. It becomes similar to either the color of the eyes of mom or dad. However, in some cases, the color of the eyes may gradually change up to three or four years.

Some scientists are inclined to believe that such processes are associated with adaptation at the gene level. Each baby has a stable, well-established genotype, which is transmitted to him from his parents equally.

As a child grows, some of its genes change. Dominant genes suppress recessive ones. And the external signs of this process are a change in the color of the iris of the eyes, a slight darkening or lightening of the skin, and the color of the hair also changes. Probably, many mothers and fathers have noticed that hair at birth can be the same color, but with age they either darken or lighten.

Parents often wonder when babies change eye color. Moms and dads are very interested in who their baby will look like more. Most children change the color of the iris before the age of one, however, there are cases when a baby has bright blue eyes in a year, and then during the next year of life they become brown or green. In some babies, as early as three months of age, the eye color becomes permanent and does not change, but this is very rare.

In newborns, vision is not very good and sharpness is low. With age, vision improves and by the year visual acuity reaches half the level of visual acuity of an adult.

For any person, the color of the eyes depends on how much melanin pigment is contained in the body, and whether it is present in the body at all. Due to the absence of this pigment in the iris of the baby, his eyes are light blue or light gray at birth. With age, the baby's body begins to accumulate melanin and therefore the color of the eyes begins to change. In the case when the color of the eyes becomes darker, it means that there is a lot of melanin in the body, if the color of the eyes remains approximately the same or acquires a light color, then there is little pigment in the body.

When newborns change eye color, this indicates that the amount of melanin increases or decreases. If it increases, then the eyes become darker, if it decreases, then vice versa.

Some babies are born with different shades of eye color. This phenomenon is called heterochrony. At birth, one eye may be green and the other blue. This is a fairly rare occurrence, such children are born 1 in several tens of thousands.

Does eye color change in these newborns? Yes, with age, the difference in the color of the eyes of children begins to manifest itself more strongly. There are also children who seem to have red eyes. The color of their iris takes on a slightly reddish tint. They also have very light skin and white hair, this is due to the fact that there is no melanin in the body. And the color of the eyes is determined by the blood that is contained in the vessels of the iris. It should be noted that the amount of melanin in the body of a child is a hereditary acquisition. At the genetic level, there is a suppression of any genes. The child acquires the genes not only of mom and dad, but also those that were laid down by his grandparents. Which of the parents has a stronger gene will pass on the color of their eyes to the baby.

Almost all mothers are surprised that their long-awaited baby was born with one eye color, and after a while he darkened, brightened or even changed shade. Is this the norm? Doctors say yes!

There are several features of eye formation in newborns:

After the birth of the baby, the process of melanin production begins. Initially, it is at the minimum level. By six months, it reaches the desired value;
In almost 90 percent of cases, the eyes become lighter to the shade laid down at the genetic level.. In dark-eyed children, in a rare case, any changes occur;
Many babies experience jaundice in the first month of life.. Eye color may acquire a shade characteristic of this disease. A positive result will be if the yellowness disappears after two weeks. In the absence of such a symptom, you should immediately contact a specialist;
Initially, all children have good vision, they do not have nearsightedness or farsightedness.. But, they have scattered focus. They can focus on any one subject no earlier than one month after birth;
Childbirth is a big stress for the baby. Against this background, red streaks may appear in the area of \u200b\u200bthe eyeball. Do not be afraid of such a phenomenon, the symptom will pass on its own in two to three days.

Every third child has a narrow tear duct. This will be indicated by a small accumulation of pus on the cilia.

What determines eye color?

Often, pregnant women imagine how they carry their future son or daughter in their arms, gently hug and kiss their beloved heirs. Many wondered what the crumbs will have eye color.

This feature depends on three factors:

In any medical practice there is a place for exceptions. For example, a newborn baby may inherit this genetic feature not from their parents, but from their grandparents. This phenomenon is extremely rare, but still, experts do not deny such a feature.

Why do we need melanin?

All living organisms on the planet actively produce melanin. This term refers to a pigment that can develop under the action of ultraviolet rays.

When a baby is in the womb, its content is negligible. When a baby is born, this value begins to actively progress. In total, several appointments of the pigment can be distinguished.

Protection of tissues from radiation damage

It is used in medicine to treat cancer, restore liver function and to eliminate fatigue syndrome.

Protection against premature value

Melanin is a unique substance. It can be independently synthesized in the human body in the form of a pigment, and it is also obtained artificially for various medical purposes. It is produced by each person in various quantities, regardless of race, age and gender.

Features of eye color and vision in newborns

At about 9 months, the baby is actively developing in the womb. The conditions in this area are as comfortable as possible for its full development: there is no noise and light exposure.

Birth is an important period of adaptation. In the first stages of life, the baby has cloudy eyes. The baby reacts to bright light, but at the same time does not hold his gaze on individual objects. Such a postpartum symptom occurs in all newborn babies and disappears only by the first month of life.

Later, the organs of vision progress in the following sequence:

The kid focuses his vision on objects and follows their movement;
The synchronization process starts. The brain stores incoming information. The child begins to recognize objects that he saw earlier;
The child learns to compare objects with sound, movement and smell.

It is impossible to determine the period for which the color of the eyes is completely established. For each child, this process occurs individually. The level of melanin can increase at different rates.

What eye color will the child have?

What eye color will appear in the child? Even highly qualified scientists cannot give an exact answer to such a question.

Methods that allow more likely to calculate this feature:

People with brown eyes have higher levels of melanin. They are dominant. If one parent has dark eyes and the other has light eyes, then there is a high probability that the child will be dark-eyed;
Almost all children inherit genetics from their parents.. In isolated cases from previous generations;
Scientists have identified a pattern that is difficult to attach to official information at this stage. The warmer the climate in the region where the crumbs live, the darker his eyes will be. This is due to the fact that a high content of melanin is required to protect the connective tissues, and eye color also depends on this pigment.

There were cases of the birth of children, unlike parents, grandparents. Certain similarities could be found with relatives located two or three stages higher in the family tree.

Scientists claim that there is no way to accurately determine the expected eye color of an unborn baby. There is some probability to calculate the estimated shade.

Table of inheritance of eye color in newborns

When does eye color change?

The process of changing eye color is divided into several main stages:

In the first days of life, there is a syndrome of postpartum cloudy eyes.. The pupils are covered with a protective film. After 2-3 weeks, this symptom disappears. The parent already sees distinct pupils;
The next three months of life is the formation of eye color in the baby. During this time, a certain iris appears;
Further, melanin will continue to accumulate under the influence of ultraviolet radiation.. Because of this, from 8 to 12 months of life, eye color can change dramatically;
By one year, the baby acquires the final shade, which will persist throughout his later life. You should carefully look into the eyes of the baby. Perhaps they will contain small specks. They are a sign that the color will continue to change.

All these figures are provisional. There are children in whom all of the above processes occur at a slow or accelerated pace.

Heterochromia

Unfortunately, heterochromia is not uncommon. Several thousand people a year come to a medical institution with this problem. Many children have different eye colors.

There are two stages of development:

Primary. Different levels of melanin are concentrated in the eyeball. This is a congenital pathology. Perhaps there is a place for a hereditary factor. If someone in the family suffered from heterochromia, then the risk of acquiring her baby is high;
Acquired. The child developed fully. After a serious illness, injury or application of drops, the color of one eye changes. This is due to a violation of the production of this pigment.

The most common defect is complex heterochromia. With it, the color of the eye completely changes. In rare cases, a partial symptom is recognized - the staining changes in separate sectors. One eye can also have several shades at the same time in the form of small circles.

If such a symptom is found, it is recommended to consult an ophthalmologist. It is quite difficult to eliminate such a violation, but there is a great chance to do this with timely treatment. It is worth noting that this disease means only a visual defect. It does not affect the functioning of the eyes.

Video: Why do people have different colored eyes?

An American scientist studied the psychology of people with a certain eye color for several years.

He created his own statistics, on the basis of which several interesting facts are distinguished:

Almost all blue-eyed people connect their lives with the study of exact science.. They have an excellent analytical mind. Brown-eyed people are weak-minded. Many of them associate life with creative activity;
If you show an object to a person with dark eyes, he will begin to actively study its color.. Light-eyed society will first of all pay attention to its form;
People with blue eyes are hard to convince. They have their own opinion on everything. Most dark-eyed individuals adhere to generally accepted standards;
Taste is different in choosing clothes. Brown-eyed people have a wardrobe full of bright things. Blue-eyed people prefer cold shades;
Individuals with bright eyes carefully plan their every step.. They don't trust anyone. Societies with dark eyes welcome frivolous behavior. It is easy for them to let a person into their personal space.

Several centuries ago, people with different eye colors were burned at the stake. It was believed that they are carriers of negative energy. Now, on the contrary, they are considered unique individuals who can be proud that nature has awarded them such a feature.

Let's summarize

It is worth making a few brief conclusions about the structural features of the eyes:

The eyes are the mirror of the human soul. According to them, people determine a lot: whether his words are sincere, whether he likes his interlocutor, whether his mood is good or bad. Does their color matter? Psychologists say yes. This feature directly affects the life of its owners. For the people themselves, this factor does not matter.

The first, but by no means the only, surprise meets moms and dads when a newborn baby opens its eyes for the first time. And instead of the amber father's shine, everyone sees gray-blue eyes. Has it been changed?

What color are the eyes of newborns

Our body is amazing, it is formed in utero and after birth throughout life is constantly changing. There are fewer bones with age, the thymus (responsible for the creation of immune cells) disappears by the age of 15, and even the eye color that we are used to in adulthood could be a different color at birth.

Genetics guarantees the predisposition of the color of the child's eyes depending on the color type of the parents' eyes, but it is impossible to say for sure that your blue-eyed baby will look at the world with bright eyes.

This is due to various factors:

skin color, nationality of parents;
genetic relationships;
% content of melanin in the body.

A blue-eyed baby cannot be born to dark-skinned parents with dark eyes: the dark pigment is dominant in large cases. For light-eyed parents, the process of establishing the color of the baby's eyes is more interesting and less predictable.

Everything depends not only on parental genes, but also on ancestors: it is impossible to predict which prevailing gene will fall at the time of conception, and it is also not clear how much pigment a small organism can produce on its own in order to establish the final eye color.

The subtleties of the process of establishing eye color

Why does a newborn's eye color change? The main reason for the instability of the eye color of a newborn is an increase in the body's production of melanos, melanin (translated from Greek as "black"). This substance:

consists of macromolecular compounds;
responsible for staining the tissues of living organisms;
has not been fully explored to date.

We can reliably talk about a direct correlation between eye color and melanin. The higher the pigment content in the body, the darker the baby's eyes will be.

The iris is based on textural, pigmentation, tissue and vascular factors in the structure of the eyeball. Melanin colors the thinnest layer on the back wall of the iris.

The mechanism of its production is activated after birth by special cells - melanocytes. In the first months, the body forms, adapts to the external environment, accumulates pigment, and by the age of six months, the baby's iris color changes, although the final color tone is set at 2-3 years.

In what cases does the color of the eyes of a newborn not change?

In some cases, it is possible to accurately predict the color of a newborn's eyes.

If both parents are brown-eyed and the child has dark eyes at birth, then they will remain so for life.

Danish scientists conducted a large-scale study and came to the conclusion that initially all the inhabitants of the earth had brown eyes.

When the mechanism of turning off the formation of melanin is fixed in the parents at the gene level, the baby inherits the “light” eye factor, which cannot change with age.

In the course of evolution, a certain mechanism appeared in human genetics that “turns off” the gene that produces melatonin. The decrease in pigment affects the appearance of the whole organism, including the eyes. So gradually began to appear people with bluish, gray-green eyes.

Another option when the color of the child's eyes is stable from birth is albinism. This is a severe form of gene mutations associated with the inability to produce pigment, and then the children's eyes are very light from birth.

Depending on the severity of the disease, they may develop light and sun fear, and to date there is no treatment.

Genetic and anatomical and physiological features of eye color

In the 19th century, G. Mendel laid the foundation for genetics by identifying the dominant and recessive genes of heredity. Dominant always dominates, recessive - inferior, with the possibility of becoming paramount in the next generations. This also applies to eye color.

The dark color of the iris will prevail over the light ones, but there is always a small chance that grandmother's gray eyes will appear after several generations. These are simple rules, but geneticists have found that 6 genes in different areas are involved in the formogenesis of eye color, and combinations of even one color can reach up to a thousand.

The eyes are multi-colored, this is due to a thin iris containing clumps of dark pigment - the very one on which skin color and tan depend. If there is little pigment in the shell, the eyes are light, if there is a lot, they are almost black.

Most newborns have blue eyes, because lumps of pigment have not yet accumulated in their irises, which takes at least six months.

Color transformations in newborns

Parents are eagerly waiting for the baby to open its eyes for the first time. But expectations may not come true, and mom and dad are at a loss: from whom did the child inherit the uncharacteristic color scheme? Everything is simple here.

How does eye color change in newborns?

There is a pattern: if the eyes are light blue and the parents are also light-eyed, there will be no radical transformations.

But the eyes of a gray shade are waiting for transformation. Six months later, a child with amber, brown or black eyes may look at you. Genetics is an unpredictable science.

How long to wait to see the true color of the eyes

Despite the fact that starting from the 77th day of intrauterine development, an iris forms in the fetus, it is too early to talk about the permanent color of the child's eyes in the first months of life. All body systems restart at birth, learn to work in new modes: beneficial bacteria colonize in the stomach, melatonin is intensely produced in the cells - a pigment responsible, among other things, for eye color.

When a child is born, most often the eyes are clear, and for many parents it becomes a surprise that the color of the eyes of their little miracle is different from the color of the eyes of mom and dad. Do not worry about this, as there is a certain period when the color of the eyes of a newborn baby changes.

By six months, you will see dramatic changes in the color of the eyes, if there are hereditary factors. But to say that the baby of the father's gray or mother's green eyes is possible only after a couple of years. It is then that melanin finally forms the iris and maintains color throughout life.

What eye color will the child have: table

Using the table, let's guess what kind of eyes the baby will have, not forgetting that each color has several nuances. Brown - not only brown, also honey, amber, onyx; blue is indigo or brilliant blue, and among grays there are silver or pewter.

Despite scientific knowledge and genetics, it is worth remembering that life always presents amazing exceptions to all the rules and laws.

And some more interesting information can be found in the following video.