Any mother would like to know in advance what her baby will be like when he grows up. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict this. A person’s appearance changes throughout his life, and looking at a baby’s face, it is unrealistic to predict which features he will retain and which he will later lose. There is a high chance that over time the newborn will even change the color of his eyes! What is this connected with? And when does a baby’s eye color change?

What determines the eye color of a newborn baby, and why does it change?

Like many other external features and properties, the shade of the iris is “programmed” at the genetic level even before a person is born. In most cases, eye color is determined based on race. The following options are considered typical:

However, these patterns are not always observed. In genetics, direct inheritance plays a much larger role than racial characteristics, and the appearance of a child will depend, first of all, on the phenotypes of his parents.

One way or another, the color of the iris is a predetermined property. Why does it change over time in some babies?

A substance called melanin is responsible for the pigmentation of the iris. It is in short supply in a newborn's body, which is why the eyes of most babies are so light. Over time, the amount of pigment produced by the body increases, and if the child is “genetically programmed” to have a dark iris, its shade changes to the required one.

Color Inheritance Probability Table

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There are methods that allow you to more or less accurately determine what your baby’s eyes will be like when he grows up. So, according to the laws of genetic inheritance external signs, the probability of a child exhibiting one or another shade of the iris is approximately as follows:

Predicting the eye color of a newborn using the table gives fairly conditional results. Firstly, an iris of a pure shade is a rare phenomenon. In nature, variants that appear as a result of mixing colors (gray, olive, amber, etc.) are more common. Secondly, when forming a phenotype, the genetic data of not only parents, but also other relatives of older generations are taken into account. That is, inherit rare color an eye, for example, from a great-grandmother - unlikely, but not impossible.

How and when does a baby’s eye color change after birth?

At what age does the amount of melanin in a child’s body increase and the iris acquire its genetically predetermined color? Due to the fact that pigment accumulation occurs gradually, the final shade is formed in several stages. Accordingly, the color of a newborn’s eyes changes several times, finally becoming established only by the age of three. Exactly how long the process will take largely depends on what eye color the baby had initially.

Blue iris

Sky-colored eyes in a newborn baby are the most common option, in which it is almost impossible to determine how the baby’s appearance will ultimately change. Blue color is changeable. In the first 2-4 years of a child’s life, it can change repeatedly, becoming darker or lighter.

The fact that the shade of the iris will remain blue and will not change to gray or green can be judged no earlier than the baby celebrates his first birthday. If the child is destined to be brown or even more dark color peephole - most likely this will become noticeable a few months after the baby is born.

Gray shade of the iris

The majority of children are born light-eyed. The blue color of the iris takes precedence in this regard. However, there are slightly fewer babies whose eyes are gray from birth.

Gray color is almost as changeable as blue. Depending on the lighting or the child's mood during the day, the color of the iris may become richer or paler. This property can be maintained for for many years. The final color of the iris in gray-eyed people is formed by the age of 12. At the same time, a radical change of the main shade to brown, green or blue is almost impossible.

Blue eye color

The indigo iris is, in a sense, genetic mutation, in which a rare shade appears due to the low density of cells in the tissues eyeball. This anomaly does not affect visual acuity. With age, the density of cells in the outer layer of the iris may normalize, and it will take on a more “neutral” blue or grayish tint. Usually this happens by 1.5-2 years.

Brown-eyed kids

If a child is born with a dark iris, it will never become lighter. The gene responsible for the appearance of a brown tint is dominant. Born with brown eyes, the baby will retain this color for the rest of its life (and pass on a similar phenotype to its children).

It is possible that in the first six months of a child’s life, his irises will continue to darken. It is difficult to predict what color the end result will be - rich brown or black. There are known cases when a baby with blue or gray eyes, the irises turned dark brown within a few days and did not change anymore.

Rarest iris color (green)

The likelihood that a newborn's eyes will resemble young grass in their hue is low. Even less is the chance that over time the irises will retain a rich green color. This is only possible if both parents of the baby have light eyes same shade. Otherwise, already in the first few weeks of life, the irises of the newborn will acquire a gray or brown (less often blue) color.

Does changing eye color affect a child's vision?

Many young parents begin to worry when they notice that their newborn's irises are becoming cloudy or pale. There is no need to be afraid of this. Gradual change in the shade of the iris - normal phenomenon, which will be observed from time to time until the eye color is finally established. Negative influence This process does not affect visual acuity - as the color of the eyes changes and the baby grows, his ability to see will improve.

Most children are born with farsightedness. In the first weeks of life, the baby’s visual acuity is only 50% of normal. As the eyeball develops, during which the iris changes color, the birth defect disappears. As a rule, by the age of 3, a child sees normally. Taking these facts into account, it cannot be said that changing the shade of the eyes affects vigilance.

Can various diseases affect color and how?

A gradual change in the shade of the iris in infancy is a normal phenomenon, but if this happens suddenly, and even with a child at an older age, this is a reason to think about it. There are a number of diseases that can manifest themselves in this way, the list is given in the table below.

How not to miss the onset of the disease and notice it in time warning signs? A change in eye color due to health problems occurs at the stage of development of the disease when it manifests itself in all possible signs. Trying to diagnose a disease in a baby yourself by the shade of the irises is a difficult and completely useless task.

If you suspect that the change in eye color is not going according to script, it would be wiser to show the baby to an ophthalmologist. The doctor will be able to dispel unfounded fears or prescribe suitable treatment for the child.

There is an opinion that a newborn's eyes are necessarily blue, but this is not entirely true - he can be absolutely anything. But the content of the pigments that determine the color of the iris changes with age, so the appearance of a newborn will say very little about what he will look like when he grows up a little. We will talk further about when the eye color of a newborn baby changes and how this happens.

The color of a person's eyes is determined by the coloring pigment melanin. It is located in the iris - a small area choroid brain, which is adjacent to the anterior surface.

Has round shape and surrounds the pupil. The main function of the pigment is to protect the retina from excess solar radiation. Eye color depends on the location and amount of melanin.

In addition to melanin, lipofuscin may be present in the eyes - it gives a yellowish tint. Complete absence melanin occurs in albinos, causing the eyes to have a red or pink tint.

The distribution of melanin is a hereditary trait, but the amount of melanin can change with age.

Changes with age in a child

During intrauterine development, melanin is produced in small quantities - this is due to the fact that the need for it will appear only after birth. Therefore, at birth they often have blonde hair, eyes and skin tone.

Depending on the distribution of melanin, the eyes of newborns may be pale blue, light gray, or have a greenish or amber tint. Some babies are born with distinct gray or brown irises.

The distribution of melanin remains unchanged, but its production increases as we grow older. Because of this, there is a gradual darkening of the eyes to their final color. How much it will change depends on individual characteristics child, the color may remain almost the same (most often this happens with gray eyes) or sharply darken from light gray to brown.

When should I change

The most significant changes in appearance occur before age 3. At this time, the color of the eyes and hair may change radically, and the skin tone may become darker or lighter than before. During the process, the shade of the iris can change several times, so it is still too early to talk about the exact color of the child’s eyes.

Until what age does this happen?

Most often, the final eye color is formed by the age of 3. During this time, several color changes may occur, sometimes quite strong. If the color continues to change after three years, then the baby is the happy owner of chameleon eyes, and this feature of appearance will decorate him.

But if this worries parents, or the baby shows any symptoms of impaired vision, then he should be shown to an ophthalmologist. If the eye color was determined earlier, there is nothing wrong with that either.

Will it necessarily change or may it remain the same?

Most often, the eyes become darker as the child gets older. But this may not happen, and then the color of the iris will remain the same or almost the same as at birth.

This happens quite often. As a rule, in cases where the baby was already born with dark eyes - brown or black, which simply cannot darken even more. The opposite situation is that the child has inherited a small amount of melanin from his parents, and his eyes will only darken slightly, remaining gray or blue.

How to determine the final eye color

Eye color is an inherited trait, so it must be determined not only by the shade of the baby’s iris, but also by the eye color of parents and more distant relatives. Based on statistics, the following patterns have been derived:

• If a baby is born with brown eyes, their color does not change;
• A child of brown-eyed parents will in most cases have brown eyes; green or green eyes are much less common. Blue eyes;
• The parents have gray eyes - the child may have gray, brown or blue;
• Parents have blue eyes - their children will have the same ones;
• Parents have green eyes - the child will have green eyes, less often - brown or blue eyes;
• The parents have a combination of brown/gray – any option for the child;
• Parents have brown/green - brown or green, less often blue;
• The combination of brown/blue is brown, blue or gray, but never green;
• The combination of gray/green – any eye color of the child;
• Gray/blue – gray or blue for the baby;
• Green/blue - any of these two options, but not brown or gray.

In fact, inheritance of eye color is somewhat more complicated. If parents have doubts about where a similar color came from, you can consult a medical geneticist. This is an expensive, but very accurate procedure.

In what cases does heterochromia occur?

Heterochromia is different eye colors in one person. In this case, both eyes can have different color(one brown, the other blue - the most common option, complete heterochromia), or one sector of the iris is painted in a color different from the rest of the circle (sectoral heterochromia), or the inner and outer edges of the iris differ in color (central heterochromia).

The central or sectoral manifestation of the condition may or may not be symmetrical, occurring in one or both eyes. Heterochromia is not considered a pathology.

The reason is a hereditary disorder of melanin distribution. It may not be visible in a newborn, but becomes noticeable after the final determination of eye color. It does not pose any danger to the baby.

In some cases, a change in iris color may be a symptom inflammatory processes(iritis, iridocyclitis, vascular lesions), but then other signs of pathology appear along with it.

What affects eye color

First of all, heredity influences eye color. Since brown eyes The most resistant to solar radiation, they have become the most common eye color on Earth. The green and gray irises perform their function a little worse (the green iris has little melanin, and the gray one is located too deep); these eye colors are approximately equally distributed.

Blue eyes do not protect well from the sun, so they are often found among representatives of the peoples of Northern Europe. The rarest color is blue, it is associated with a small amount of melanin, located deep, and at the same time with a low density of iris fibers. Owners of such eyes are advised to wear sunglasses.

Diseases affecting eye color

Except normal factors, pathological conditions can also affect the color of the iris. The most famous among them is albinism. This hereditary disease, in which the production of melanin is disrupted - it stops partially or completely. With partial albinism, the eyes may have a blue or green color, but usually a rather subtle color. With complete albinism, the eye color becomes red - this is due to the blood vessels being visible.

With glaucoma, eye color becomes lighter due to increased intraocular pressure, and some drugs for it, on the contrary, cause darkening of the eyes. Bright blue eye color in a newly born baby may be a sign of congenital glaucoma.

Inflammatory processes in the iris can lead to a decrease in the amount of pigment or its complete disappearance in the affected sector.

How does eye color affect vision?

Eye color does not affect vision at all - the iris is not involved in optical system eyes. But the amount of melanin affects the patient's ability to tolerate exposure to bright light. sunlight no harm to the retina. Blue-eyed people are more likely to experience eye irritation, photophobia, and fatigue after intense visual stress.

The first, but far from the only, surprise greets moms and dads when a newborn baby opens its eyes for the first time. And instead of daddy’s amber shine, everyone sees gray-blue eyes. Has it really been changed?

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

Genetics guarantees a predisposition to the child's eye color 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 light eyes.

This is due to various factors:

• skin color, nationality of parents;
• genetic family ties;
• % melanin content in the body.

Dark-skinned parents with dark eyes cannot give birth to a blue-eyed baby: the dark pigment is dominant in most 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 the parental genes, but also on the ancestors: it is impossible to predict which dominant gene will be transferred at the moment of conception, and it is also unclear how much pigment a small organism can produce on its own in order to determine the final color of the eyes.

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 high molecular weight compounds;
• responsible for coloring the tissues of living organisms;
• to date has not been fully studied.

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

The mechanism of its production is activated after birth by special cells - melanocytes. In the first months, the body forms and adapts to external environment, accumulates pigment, and by six months of the baby’s life a change in the color of the iris is visible, although the final color tone is established at 2-3 years.

In what cases does a newborn's eye color 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 parents have a mechanism for disabling the formation of melanin fixed at the genetic level, the baby inherits the factor of “light” eyes, which cannot change with age.

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

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

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

Genetic and anatomical and physiological characteristics of eye color

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

The dark color of the iris will dominate the light ones, but there is always a small chance that grandmother's gray eyes will appear after several generations. This simple rules, but geneticists have established that the formation of eye color involves 6 genes per different areas and combinations of even one color can reach up to a thousand.

Eyes come in different colors, this is due to the thin iris containing clumps of dark pigment - the same 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; this requires at least six months.

Color transformations in newborns

Parents eagerly wait for their baby to open his eyes for the first time. But expectations may not be met, and moms and dads 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 gray eyes are waiting to be transformed. In six months, a child may look at you with amber, brown or black eyes. Genetics is an unpredictable science.

How long to wait to see true eye color

Despite the fact that, starting from the 77th day of intrauterine development, the iris is formed in the fetus, it is too early to talk about the constant color of the child’s eyes in the first months of life. All systems of the body are restarted during birth, learning to work in new modes: they are populated in the stomach beneficial bacteria, the cells intensively produce melatonin, a pigment that is also responsible for eye color.

When a child is born, his eyes are most often clear, and for many parents it comes as a surprise that the color of the eyes of their little miracle is different from the color of the eyes of mom and dad. No need to worry about this, because there is certain period when the eye color of a newborn baby changes.

By six months, you will see dramatic changes in eye color, if necessary. hereditary factors. But you can say that a child has daddy’s gray or mommy’s green eyes 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 assume 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 ones are indigo or brilliant blue, and among the gray ones there are silver or pewter.

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

And a little extra interesting information You can find out from the following video.

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 the sex it’s somehow simpler, with an ultrasound, if mom wants, with a large share probabilities will 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.

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, light color The child's eyes will not meet 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 people with brown eyes hear that they have an evil eye and 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 blood vessels eyes. 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 him, 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.

As soon as the baby is born, mom and dad immediately begin to determine who he looks like. Decisive role The eyes, of course, play a resemblance to their parents. However, it is impossible to immediately understand what color they will be. This is because the permanent color will appear a little later. Let's figure out when newborns' eye color changes.

The structure of a baby's eye is not particularly different from that of an adult. By using optic nerves the resulting image is sent to the brain for processing. The eye consists of the lens, cornea and retina. Immediately after birth, a baby’s vision is imperfect and a lot of time must pass before he begins to see fully. Typically, the process of vision formation is completed by the age of one year.

Now let's look at why eye color changes.

The color of the iris, hair and skin shade in children depend on the content of melanin in the body. This pigment is responsible for eye color. Most babies are born with blue or gray eyes. During this period, the amount of melanin in the iris of the eye is zero.

Along with the growth and development of the baby, pigment begins to be produced and accumulate. When babies' eyes change color, a certain amount of melanin accumulates accordingly. To the greatest extent it should be present for brown color eye.

Up to a year, the shade can change several times. As a rule, the final formation of the native color of the iris ends by the age of three to four years.

Now we will answer the question that interests you - “when does a child’s eye color change?”
Most dramatic change shading occurs at six to nine months. However, until the age of four, color changes still occur. For example, brown eyes may gradually lighten and turn green or gray. Some even adults may experience a change in eye color in later life. But this is already an exception.

If we talk about heredity, there is a widespread belief that the color of a child’s eyes is determined in accordance with Mendel’s laws. This statement is not entirely correct. This cannot be determined with 100% accuracy.

However, there is a certain pattern:

• if both parents are blue-eyed, then the baby will certainly not lag behind them in this matter;
• in the case when mom or dad have brown eyes, then there is a high probability that the baby will have the same eye color;
• if grandparents, for example, have blue eyes, just like one of the baby’s parents, then the chance of being born blue-eyed increases significantly.

It is worth noting that brown color dominates over green. And the latter, in turn, is dominant over blue and gray.

There are cases when children's eyes have different shades. This is a sign of heterochromia, which occurs as a result of excess or insufficient content melanin. Here it is imperative to consult an ophthalmologist.