Are all babies born with blue eyes?

[catty5nutz]

Maybe you have heard this one, that all babies are born with blue eyes.

Certainly, not quite all. My brother was born with very dark brown, almost black eyes, and it was widely commented on by friends and family. So was my younger nephew. My family is of Irish, English, German and possibly Italian or Spanish extraction BTW

So what about Black and Asian babies? Do they have the proverbial baby-blues at birth? Or are they dark-eyed from birth?

[geminilee]

My Hispanic, extremely dark-eyed neice was born with "blue" eyes, although they were by no means a light blue. They were a very dark blue, almost the same darkness she has now, just a different tint.
This site gives a reason why most infants of any race would have blue or blue-ish eyes.

[ganzfeld]

This is an exaggeration combined with a myth. Some babies eyes change as they get more melanin; They appear to go from a dark blue or gray to their more permanent color. This is more common in populations with less melanin. Most babies are born with dark eyes or with some of the color that they will have later in life (usually brown because the vast majority of eyes are brown).

[Radon Girl]

A myth, diffinitely not ALL babies are born with blue eyes not even all white babies are born with blue eyes in fact I'd say I fair number of babies are NOT born with blue eyes.
My daughter was born with very dark brown eyes, actaully looked black for the first few weeks. This is kind of odd becuase I'm a red head with very pale skin and green eyes (my husband does have an olive complexion with brown eyes so that where she gets it from) I have a baby that doesn't even look like me.

Radon "I know she's mine I gave birth to her" Girl.

[catty5nutz]

I thought it had to be a myth. As I said, my brother and my nephew were both born with very dark, almost black eyes.

Thanks for the link - I always thought that it was impossible for two blue-eyed parents to have brown-eyed kids. However, I did read about a case recently, that caused a big stink in South Africa during the 1960s. A little girl born to white parents had dark skin and curly hair. As a result, she was classified as non-white, and her life was hell as a result

Sorry, can't provide a cite right now.

[Not_Done_Living]

My ex wife is greek, and has very dark eyes. I have very pale blue eyes.
Our first son was born with blue, then over the next 2 years, they actually bounced from brown to blue to brown to blue. We (well my ex) has pictures documenting the change.. every time she noticed the change she snapped a pic.

they finally settled on brown.

Our daughter was born blue, and they just stuck...

Our son is also dark skinned with dark wiry hair, very Greek, while my daughter is very light, with honey blond hair, very me. (irish/english/germanic).

[FullMetal]

well my son was born with blue eyes, but my wife has blue eyes. I was born with Purple Eyes. they settled into brown after a few years.

[izanami]

My three boys were all born with deep blue eyes.

One now has green eyes, one has dark brown and my youngest still has blue.

[Mosherette]

I have pictures of my ginger-and-white cat as a kitten and he has blue eyes. His eyes are amber now, and are gorgeous, but I wish they'd stayed blue - he looked well cute. Mind you, he had a big case of the fuzzies as a kitten, so he'd've been cute no matter what colour his eyes *squish*

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Mosherette

I have pictures of my ginger-and-white cat as a kitten and he has blue eyes. His eyes are amber now, and are gorgeous, but I wish they'd stayed blue - he looked well cute. Mind you, he had a big case of the fuzzies as a kitten, so he'd've been cute no matter what colour his eyes *squish*

We can discuss fur-babies as well as people-babies here too?

[Mosherette]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

We can discuss fur-babies as well as people-babies here too?

Why not?!

I'd always thought that the born-with-blue eyes was a myth (I thought surely all babies were born with their eventual eye colour) until I saw pictures of George as a baby.

[Zorro]

My son was born with really pretty blue eyes that changed to the current color around ten months old or so. (His eyes are currently what I guess you'd call hazel- greenish with an outer rim of brown. I have hazel- green-blue- eyes and hubby has light brown eyes.)

[llewtrah]

In my case - born blue-eyed, stayed blue-eyed. The same with both my sisters. Only mum has brown eyes.

I remember the "brown eyes" inheritance (i.e. the simple monogenic dominant/recessive version) being used as plot device in a Jonathon Creek story. I can't remember if Creek said it was very unlikely for blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed baby, or if he said it wasn't possible (the crux being the brown-eyed person was adopted and her real parents were very, very important in society).

[DadOf3]

I was born with brown eyes, which shocked the nurses according to my mother. When my first son was born, my wife asked what colour his eyes were, and the nurse said, "All babies are born with blue eyes." My wife told her that I wasn't, and she (the nurse) looked at me doubtfully, but when I looked into my new-born son's eyes (what an emotional sentence that one is to type) I said, "They're brown." The nurse looked at them, and had to agree with me.

Admittedly, there was some blue around the edges, but they were brown and stayed that way. Number two son has always had blue eyes, looking more like my wife's side of the family (from Germany, about 12 generations ago), and number three son followed the born-with-blue-eyes pattern, then went brown. His brown eyes are darker than his big brother's.

[Latiam]

I was always surprised that my mum's eyes were a pale blue. She said they weren't always that way. Well, as I age my eyes are becoming a lighter and lighter blue. I don't understand it, but we were looking at pictures of ancestors and one sepia toned photograph of a woman was the same - very light eyes - you could tell. So I guess it's genetic in my case.
Of course my hair is getting lighter too - it was brown and now it's blonde. So maybe my melanin is just wacky.

[Mad Jay]

I'm Asian and I was born with blue eyes. However, I was the only one in my family born with blue eyes. I was a freak until my eyes turned brown. People would stop my mom and ask her if her husband is European.

[Mrosie]

I was born with black eyes, that somewhat lightened to a dark brown. My sister was born with gray eyes that eventually stayed a greenish gray. My Mother has brown eyes, my father blue, and a grandmother with green.

[purpleiguana]

My older boy's eyes were kind of a greenish-brown when he was born. They are very brown right now.

My younger boy's eyes were kind of a steely-gray when he was born. They are very blue right now.

My daughter's eyes change constantly... sometimes steely-gray, sometimes greenish-brown, sometimes deep blue. I have no idea WTF color her eyes will settle on.

[kia]

I had blue eyes when born. They're now green. Both my daughters were born with blue eyes but I guess it's too early to say if they'll stay that way, mine didn't 'change' from blue to green until the age of about 9 or 10, and I had an intermediary grey stage where my eyes were grey but would look blue or green depending on light.

My friend has a one year old and he had very distinctive brown eyes from birth.

[KaiTheInvader]

I'd always heard it as light-skinned babies are always born with blue eyes, dark-skinned are always born with light brown. But, my sister (who though the darkest of all of us, is still pretty white) was born with dark almost black eyes, and they're now a light brown. she also has a mongolian birthmark (typical color and location) which I'd always read was only in dark-skinned babies. I also used to teach a kid who had some of the lightest, prettiest blue eyes you'd ever seen, and he was very black (as were both of his parents and the rest of his family, and he wasn't adopted either.)

genetics is weird.