How long does it take for a baby’s eye color to change?

When can you tell a baby’s real eye color?

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As parents, it is easy to spend hours a day looking into your child’s eyes. After all, mutual gazing is one of the earliest forms of communication you can have with them. When looking into your child’s eyes, the eye color you see as a newborn or infant may not be the same eye color they end up with as a toddler.

But how do you know when – or if – those baby blue or gray eyes will turn into a different shade? We spoke with uma especialista para fornecer mais informações sobre o que determina a cor dos olhos e quando os olhos do seu bebê começarão a mudar de cor.

No passado distante, não havia duas pessoas com exatamente a mesma cor de olhos, graças à genética. Cientistas acreditam que até 16 genes ajudam a compor a cor dos olhos, embora dois genes principais – HERC2 e OCA2 – desempenhem o maior fator determinante. Ambos os genes estão localizados no cromossomo 15, um dos 23 pares de cromossomos encontrados em humanos.

“Eye color is determined by an individual’s genetics; inherited genes which are the codes that influence the expression of traits such as our skin color, hair, and eye color,” says Dr. Zepeda. “Most of these codes related to eye color are linked to the production, transport, and storage of a pigment called melanin.”

Este pigmento é criado por células especiais chamadas melanócitos. O pigmento é armazenado em vasos especiais chamados melanosomos.

“Entre os humanos, o número relativo de melanócitos é semelhante; no entanto, a quantidade de melanina criada, bem como o número de melanosomos, difere de pessoa para pessoa,” explica Dr. Zepeda. “Essas diferenças dão origem à ampla gama de lindas cores de olhos observadas.”

Para entender como os olhos obtêm sua cor, você deve primeiro entender o papel da íris – a estrutura muscular que envolve a pupila (a parte preta do olho) e controla a quantidade de luz que entra no olho. A íris possui uma camada traseira (conhecida como epitélio pigmentado) e uma camada frontal (conhecida como estroma).

A maioria das pessoas tem algum marrom no epitélio pigmentado. No entanto, a quantidade de pigmento no estroma é o que determina a cor dos seus olhos.

“The iris holds many melanocytes which house all the melanin. Blue eyes contain minimal amounts of pigment while brown eyes have high melanin levels,” diz Dr. Zepeda.

Quanto mais ativas as células melanócitas forem, mais melanina é produzida. Em outras palavras, pessoas com olhos de cor mais clara (azuis ou verdes) não têm um pigmento de cor diferente. Elas simplesmente têm menos pigmento marrom do que pessoas com olhos mais escuros.

Dr. Zepeda também explica como a quantidade de luz refletida da íris determina a cor dos olhos. Olhos de cor mais clara têm menos ou nenhuma melanina para absorver luz, portanto, mais luz é dispersa pelo espectro de cores pelas fibras de colágeno para fazer os olhos parecerem azuis ou verdes. Olhos mais escuros têm mais melanina e absorvem mais luz, fazendo com que os olhos pareçam marrons.

Isso explica por que os olhos de algumas pessoas parecem ter uma cor diferente em determinadas condições de luz.

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Which parent determines eye color?

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Page published on Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Whether your child is born with brown eyes or blue eyes — or any hue in between — involves a complicated game of genetic roulette. But human eye color genetics aren’t as simple as looking at the parents’ eyes and then predicting a child’s eye color.

At one time, researchers thought that only one gene passed eye color from parents to their children. This led to the belief that a child whose parents shared an eye color (such as brown) couldn’t inherit a different eye color (such as blue).

It turns out that isn’t quite accurate. Scientists now know that a collection of up to 16 genes plays a role in eye color genetics. So, it’s entirely possible for parents with brown eyes to welcome a child who’s eyes are a different color into the world. Although those scenarios are uncommon, they do happen.

Ultimately, the parents’ eye colors can help predict their child’s eye color, but it’s only one factor.

Baby on the way? While it’s fun to play the guessing game, it’s virtually impossible to accurately predict the color of your newborn’s eyes. The genetics that determine eye color are simply more complex than, “well I have blue eyes, my partner has brown, so Baby’s eyes will be…”

There are, however, other genetic predispositions that are important to watch out for, like glaucoma and macular degeneration. So keep on guessing Baby’s eye color. Then schedule an eye exam for you and your partner to discuss eye problems that may run in your family and get your own precious eyes checked out!

There’s no guarantee when it comes to your offspring’s eye color. While a baby inherits half of their eye color genetics from one parent and half from the other parent, the way that the multiple genes interact also plays a role in determining eye color.

Differences in eye color are also influenced by differing amounts of melanin, the pigment responsible for eye color (plus hair color and skin tone).

For instance, many white non-Hispanic babies are born with blue eyes because they don’t have the full amount of melanin present in their irises at birth. As the child grows older, if they’ve developed slightly more melanin in their irises, they may end up with green or hazel eyes. When the iris stores a lot of melanin, the eyes will be amber (a golden brown), light brown or dark brown.

Even though you don’t know the amount of melanin your baby will have, you can still get a pretty good sense of eye color from the parents’ eye colors. As the American Academy of Pediatrics explains:

• Two blue-eyed parents are likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it’s not guaranteed.
• Two brown-eyed parents are likely to have a brown-eyed child. Again, it’s not guaranteed.
• Two green-eyed parents are likely to have a green-eyed child, although there are exceptions.
• Two hazel-eyed parents are likely to have a hazel-eyed child, although a different eye color could emerge.

If one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the odds of having a…

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What is the rarest eye color?

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Of the four main eye colors (brown, blue, green, and hazel), the rarest eye color is green. However, new classifications say another color is almost as rare: gray. Brown is the most common worldwide, while blue and hazel are second and third most common.

Eye color is an inherited trait with multiple genes affecting the shade. Genes related to the production of pigments—melanin, eumelanin, and pheomelanin—dictate the color of your skin, hair, and eyes. A person’s eye color reflects a unique combination and concentration of pigments in the iris.

The most common eye colors include:

• Brown – found in 45% of the U.S. population and possibly almost 80% worldwide.
• Blue – the second most common.
• Hazel/amber – the next rarest color after green.
• Green – the rarest, showing up in about 9% of Americans but only 2% of the world’s population.

Black is not an eye color. While some eyes may look black, they’re either just a very dark brown or large pupils.

New classifications have determined that gray is its own standard color. (In studies, gray and blue have historically been combined.) With this change, gray and green now rank as the rarest eye colors.

Gray eyes may contain just enough melanin in the front layer to dim the blue wavelengths of light that are reflected back by the tissue of the eye. Dark gray eyes have a bit more melanin in the front layer than pale gray eyes.

Eye color is influenced by the production of melanin, or pigments, in the iris—the colored part of your eye. More melanin means darker eyes; less means lighter eyes.

Different types of melanin determine the specific hue of the eyes. Eumelanin is a black-brown pigment responsible for darker eyes, hair, and skin. Pheomelanin is a yellow-red pigment that’s behind green or amber eyes, red hair, and freckles.

People in countries farther away from the equator tend to have lighter-colored eyes and skin. Darker eyes and skin are common in warmer locales, closer to the equator.

At one time, scientists thought that eye color inheritance was a simple matter of whether genes present were dominant (expressed whenever present) or recessive (only expressed when matched with the same gene).

In other words, brown eye color (considered dominant) would be expected in a child even if only one parent has brown eyes. Two blue-eyed parents (blue eye color considered recessive) would not be expected to have a child with brown eyes.

However, we now know that the genetics of eye color are more complex. Most eye-color genes have something to do with the transport, production, and storage of melanin. More melanin in the iris makes for brown eyes, while less of it may mean blue, hazel, green, or gray eyes.

The amount of melanin present in the front of the iris, the back of the iris, and in the stroma (the thickest layer of the cornea) between them matters too.

Multiple genes influence the various combinations and concentrations of melanin.

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How long do newborn’s eyes stay grey?

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Who will baby look like? It is anyone’s guess. Expecting a baby is such an exciting time! Should you paint the nursery blue or pink? Will the baby have the same cleft in his chin as daddy or mommy’s dimples or grandma’s blue eyes?

Eye Color

Eye color refers to the hue of the iris. The iris is the muscle that controls the amount of light that enters the eye by dilating or constricting the black pupil in the center. There are cells in our skin, hair and eyes called melanocytes which produce the protein that is responsible for pigmentation. This protein is called melanin. The more melanin produced, the darker things will become.

In the eyes, a lot of melanin results in brown peepers looking back at you.

• A little less gives you green or hazel.
• If you produce almost no melanin you end up batting baby blues.
• Albinos have no melanin at all; their eyes look pink or red because the lack of pigment allows the blood vessels in the back of the eye to show through.

Here Comes the Sun

In order for melanocytes to work they need exposure to ultraviolet rays. This explains why our skin gets darker after basking in the sun. Most newborns have dark blue or slate gray eyes because until they are born they have spent all their time in a warm, dark place. Once they emerge into the light the melanin starts flowing.

Mom + Dad + Baby

Genetics determines how much melanin your baby will produce. The genetics of eye color is much more complicated than those punnett squares from high school biology class would lead us to believe. Two brown eyed parents will most likely have a brown eyed baby (brown eyes is the color that occurs most often) but throw in a blue-eyed grandparent and anything goes. Two blue-eyed parents will probably have blue-eyed offspring but it is not 100% guaranteed. One brown eyed parent and one blue eyed parent could result in any color on the spectrum. In our family blue-eyed mom plus hazel-eyed dad ended up with one pair of green eyes, 2 blue-eyed babies and this set that are hazel.

How long must we wait?

So, when will you know for sure what color your baby’s eyes will be? Well, if parenting teaches us anything it is that patience is a virtue. Unless you cheated and found out your baby’s gender via ultrasound (like I did) you had to wait 9 months to discover whether you were having a boy or a girl. You may have to wait at least another 9 months for eye color to be fully determined. A general rule of thumb is that if eyes look dark they probably will not go lighter. The melanocytes get the majority of their work done in the first 6-12 months so you should have a pretty good idea about what you are going to get by your baby’s first birthday. Some subtle changes may continue until the age of 3; eyes that appear blue at 12 months may end up green or grey given a little more time.

Source

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How can I tell what color my newborn’s eyes will be?

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When baby is born, you can’t wait to see their tiny hands and feet, the shape of their nose and the color of their skin, hair and eyes. But as you discover all their unique features and decide which parent they look more like, you might start to wonder: When do babies’ eyes change color? Will they always have those baby blue eyes, or will they eventually turn brown? If one parent has brown eyes and the other blue, will baby get hazel?

“My husband and I have a 100 percent chance of having children with blue eyes,” says gollywollypog, a community member on The Bump forums. “We already have two with blue eyes, so number three is guaranteed.” So do all babies have blue eyes? And when do baby’s eyes change color? Read on to learn from experts if and when your newborn’s eye color will change.

In this article:

• Key takeaways
• Are all babies born with blue eyes?
• When do babies’ eyes change color?
• Why do babies’ eyes change color?
• What color do babies’ eyes change to?
• When do baby’s eyes stop changing color?
• Is there a way to predict baby’s eye color?
• Baby eye color chart
• Frequently asked questions
• To sum it up

You’ve probably heard that all babies are born with blue eyes—but experts say this is a myth. “Babies are born with all different colored eyes. Some have dark eyes already and some have blue,” says Mohamad S. Jaafar, MD, a pediatric ophthalmologist and chief of the division of ophthalmology at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC.

It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but Caucasian babies tend to be born with lighter eyes, while those of African-American, Asian and Hispanic descent are usually born with brown or dark brown eyes, even eyes that look black. Dash Retnasothie, OD, MS, a pediatric optometrist and CEO and founder of Smartbaby Decor LLC, attributes this characteristic to evolution and distance from the equator. She notes that northern European countries tend to have more people with lighter colored eyes due to a need to absorb less sunlight. “People near the equator had tons of sun,” she explains. “They needed their eyes to absorb more of it and needed that [extra] melanin as a protective barrier. That’s why there’s that distribution of people from the south having more brown eyes than in [northern] European countries.” (More about melanin and how it contributes to eye color below.)

My baby’s eyes were blue until around 10 or 11 months, and then they turned green!

Your child’s newborn eye color may be blue, but that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily stay that way. So does eye color change with age? The experts say it can—to an extent. “Babies’ eyes tend to change color sometime between 6 and 12 months, but it can take as long as three years until you see the true color of what their eyes are going to be,” says Barbara Cohlan, MD, a neonatologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

As a general rule of thumb, baby eye color tends to get darker if it changes. So if your child has blue eyes, they may turn to green, hazel or …

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Which parent determines the eye color of a baby?

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Page published on Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Whether your child is born with brown eyes or blue eyes — or any hue in between — involves a complicated game of genetic roulette. But human eye color genetics aren’t as simple as looking at the parents’ eyes and then predicting a child’s eye color.

At one time, researchers thought that only one gene passed eye color from parents to their children. This led to the belief that a child whose parents shared an eye color (such as brown) couldn’t inherit a different eye color (such as blue).

It turns out that isn’t quite accurate. Scientists now know that a collection of up to 16 genes plays a role in eye color genetics. So, it’s entirely possible for parents with brown eyes to welcome a child who’s eyes are a different color into the world. Although those scenarios are uncommon, they do happen.

Ultimately, the parents’ eye colors can help predict their child’s eye color, but it’s only one factor.

Baby on the way?

While it’s fun to play the guessing game, it’s virtually impossible to accurately predict the color of your newborn’s eyes. The genetics that determine eye color are simply more complex than, “well I have blue eyes, my partner has brown, so Baby’s eyes will be…”

There are, however, other genetic predispositions that are important to watch out for, like glaucoma and macular degeneration. So keep on guessing Baby’s eye color. Then schedule an eye exam for you and your partner to discuss eye problems that may run in your family and get your own precious eyes checked out!

There’s no guarantee when it comes to your offspring’s eye color. While a baby inherits half of their eye color genetics from one parent and half from the other parent, the way that the multiple genes interact also plays a role in determining eye color.

Differences in eye color are also influenced by differing amounts of melanin, the pigment responsible for eye color (plus hair color and skin tone).

For instance, many white non-Hispanic babies are born with blue eyes because they don’t have the full amount of melanin present in their irises at birth. As the child grows older, if they’ve developed slightly more melanin in their irises, they may end up with green or hazel eyes. When the iris stores a lot of melanin, the eyes will be amber (a golden brown), light brown or dark brown.

Even though you don’t know the amount of melanin your baby will have, you can still get a pretty good sense of eye color from the parents’ eye colors. As the American Academy of Pediatrics explains:

• Two blue-eyed parents are likely to have a blue-eyed child, but it’s not guaranteed.
• Two brown-eyed parents are likely to have a brown-eyed child. Again, it’s not guaranteed.
• Two green-eyed parents are likely to have a green-eyed child, although there are exceptions.
• Two hazel-eyed parents are likely to have a hazel-eyed child, although a different eye color could emerge.

If one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the odds of having a…

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Which parent passes down eye color?

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Eye color is a complex genetic trait determined by pairings of genes passed on from each parent. Scientists once believed eye color was determined by a single gene, but advances in genetic research have revealed that eye color is influenced by more than 50 genes.

A baby’s eye color is controlled by the amount and type of pigment called melanin stored in the iris. While it’s mostly just a physical trait, eye color can sometimes signal that a baby has a health issue.

The colored part of the eye is called the iris. What we see as eye color is really just a combination of pigments (colors) produced in a layer of the iris known as the stroma. There are three such pigments:

• Melanin
• Pheomelanin
• Eumelanin

The combination of pigments and how widely they’re spread and absorbed by the stroma determine whether an eye looks brown, hazel, green, gray, blue, or a variation of those colors.

For example, brown eyes have a higher amount of melanin than green or hazel eyes. Blue eyes have very little pigment. They appear blue for the same reason the sky and water appear blue—by scattering light so that more blue light reflects out. People with no melanin at all have pale blue eyes.

A newborn’s eye color is usually related to their skin tone. White babies tend to be born with blue or sometimes gray eyes. Black, Hispanic, and Asian babies commonly have brown or black eyes.

A baby’s eye color may change over time. Most pigment is produced during the first six months of life, so permanent eye color can’t be determined until a child is around 1 year old.

Not all babies are born with blue eyes. Contrary to the popular belief that all babies start life with blue eyes, there are many babies born with brown eyes. It can be difficult to predict eye color, but many babies’ eyes will turn brown or a darker color within three years after being born. Eye color is determined by multiple variations of genes that produce and distribute melanin, pheomelanin, and eumelanin. The main genes influencing eye color are OCA2 and HERC2. Both are located on human chromosome 15. Genes thought to interact with OCA2 and HERC2 to determine eye color include ASIP, IRF4, SLC24A4, SLC24A5, SLC45A2, TPCN2, TYR, and TYRP1.

Each gene has two different versions (alleles). You inherit one from your mother and one from your father. If the two alleles of a specific gene are different (heterozygous), the dominant trait is expressed (shown). The trait that is hidden is called recessive.

If a trait is recessive, like blue eyes, it usually only appears when the alleles are the same (homozygous).

Generally, darker eye colors are the most dominant. Brown eye color is a dominant trait and blue eye color is a recessive trait. Green eye color is a mix of both. Green is recessive to brown but dominant to blue. Although green eyes are dominant to blue eyes, they are still rarer than other eye colors.

Blue eyes are attributed to a common ancestor shared between every person with blue eyes.

It is possible for two blue-eyed parents to have…

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Do hazel eyes count as green or brown?

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The most common eye color is brown. More than half of the world’s population has brown eyes (some experts include amber as a shade of brown, too). A key reason is the range of shades that fall under this color. Brown eyes can range from light to dark. With the darkest shades of brown, it might be hard to tell where the iris ends and the pupil begins.

Not counting colors like red/pink from conditions like albinism, the rarest of the main eye colors is green. About 2% of people worldwide have green eyes.

No. It’s common for babies to have blue eyes at birth, but it’s not universal. In fact, one study from 2016 found only about 20% of babies have blue eyes at birth. That same study also found that about 63% of babies have brown eyes and a little under 6% have green eyes.

Not all babies’ eyes will change color, but many will. If your baby’s eyes do change color, you might notice it as early as when they’re 3 months old. Color changes should finish by the time most children reach 6 years old, but a small percentage can have ongoing eye color changes until adulthood.

Researchers from the above 2016 study came back two years later to examine the 73% of the original children who returned for follow-up. That follow-up found that by 2 years old, only about 1 in 3 children had eye color changes.

Yes, but their parents’ eye colors aren’t the only factor. Eye color genetics are extremely complicated. So far, researchers know of dozens of genes and DNA mutations that can affect eye color.

So, while parents’ eye colors are a major factor, they aren’t the only one. And sometimes, eye colors skip generations. So, if a baby’s eye color doesn’t match their parents’, there are plenty of reasons why that might happen.

Hazel eyes happen when your irises have less melanin than someone with brown eyes, but more melanin than someone with blue or green eyes. Hazel eyes are a combination of brown, gold or green. It’s not an equal mix. Some people have eyes that seem only to have two of those colors, while others may have eyes that show all three. The possible differences among people with hazel eyes are one easy way to see just how unique eye color can be.

A note from Cleveland Clinic: Your eye color is one of the things that makes you unique from everyone else on this planet. It can change throughout your lifetime and offer clues to your history and heritage. Understanding how it works can sometimes be a clue to medical conditions or concerns. No matter your reason for taking time to notice someone’s eye color (or your own), it’s often easy to see why it can be such a captivating feature all on its own.

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