to wonder where my redheaded blue-eyed baby came from?

[retrocutie]

So, we have just had a gorgeous little DD. We are very happy, she is lovely. Her brothers love her and everything's great. We were just a bit shocked by what she looks like...

My DH is Mediterranean, so very swarthy and dark. Our DS's look just like him. I am pale with light blonde hair and green eyes. Our DSs have dark hair and eyes like DH.

However, DD has bright ginger hair and blue eyes! How did this happen? I didn't think it was possible, genetically speaking? I feel that people are a bit and wondering if I had an affair (I didn't). Has anybody heard of this before? I just want to have an answer ready for the next time somebody asks me. Thanks.

Boyswillgrow your children are just gorgeous! Really gorgeous!

Eyes and hair colour change from when babies are newborn. My friend had platinum blonde hair until she was about 2 years old and then it changed to dark brown. All caucasian babies are born with blue eyes (I think - maybe a medical professional can correct me if I'm wrong) regardless of the parents' eye colour.

The genes don't "skip" as such. It's just that if you're a carrier, and you have a child with a carrier then (as posted up thread) there is a 25% chance of the child having the expressed gene (ie red hair).

Your other children will have a 50% chance of being carriers themselves, and a 25% chance of not having the gene so not being able to have red haired children, whatever genes their future partners have.

It's perfectly possible for noone in living memory in a family to have red hair and yet have been carrying the gene. My family for example (red hair, noone on either side has ever had red hair that anyone knows of, mother's family particularly dark.)

Blue eyes is similar I think, although I read somewhere that eye colour genetics is more complicated than people realise.

Don't panic! Most of what people are taught in school re eye/ hair colour genetics is total bollocks (genetics PhD here ). Hair, eye and skin pigmentation doesn't follow the simple dominant/ recessive rules that govern things like the height of pea plants.

There is no one "gene for" red hair or blue eyes: at least 15 genes govern eye colour, for example. Very simply put: if all 15 genes are working properly, you get brown eyes. If one or more aren't working properly, the complicated biochemical process that produces eye colour pigment stalls at one point or another, and you get lighter coloured eyes.

This is why it is perfectly possible for two light-eyed parents to have a dark-eyed child. Say Dad's eye colour gene no 12 isn't working: this gives him light eyes. But Mum's gene no 12 is working fine; she has light eyes because her gene no. 5 isn't working properly.

A baby inherits 2 sets of each gene, one from Mum and one from Dad. The normal no 12 gene baby gets from Mum compensates for the faulty no. 12 gene from Dad. And the good no. 5 gene it gets from Dad backs up the faulty no. 5 gene baby gets from Mum.

Result: dark eyed baby and a furiously tutting mothing in law

Oops--forgot to add: similar idea applies to hair and eye colour

Skin colour, even!

My Italian DF with Italian parents has a blonde blue eyed brother. It was explained to us that each parent has a set of cards and plays one

DM plays brown DF blue, brown wins, brown eyes.
DF plays brown DM blue, brown wins, brown eyes.
Both play brown, brown eyes.
Both play blue blue eyes.

So more likely to be brown but can be blue.

It is a myth that all children are born with blue eyes, dd1 and ds were born with deep brown eyes, as was I. The midwives all commented on them. Dd2 was two weeks early with dark grey eyes which turned brown within a few weeks. It is unusual in caucasian children, but my children are exceptions.

Genes don't 'skip a generation' although it might sometimes seem as if they do, half the genes come from your mother and half from your father, in my family my mother has blue eyes and my father has brown eyes, my sister has blue eyes. I must have one blue eye gene in me inherited from my mother, but as brown eyes are dominant then you can see my father's eye colour. You can only pass one of the two genes on. I haven't passed that blue eye gene on as my dc all have brown eyes which can only come from me as dh has blue/green colour. Their children could have blue or green eyes, but this won't have skipped a generation or two from my family as all they can pass on from my family is brown eye colour, the blue/green colour would come from dh and their partner's family.

If anyone asks OP, just say 'well of course it's possible as they are recessive gene we didn't know we had it in us to make such a lovely baby!

Love that explanation badbride will keep it up my sleeve in case DC2 isn't blue eyed like DH and me.

As it is, DS has lovely blue eyes. Everyone always comments on them (we're in a country that tends to have darker eyes) and always asks if they come from mum or dad, before looking up at us and going "oh, both of you!".

Or, when I'm by myself I've been asked if they come from dad. Which is odd as DS has my colouring (hair and eyes). Although DH has my colouring too

Yes, neither my DD and DS were born with blue eyes!! DD had dark grey and DS were black. Absolutely beautiful. We are both Caucasian. DD have slowly changed from grey to hazel and still changing. I've read about it and it is the sunlight that changes them so they may change more as she gets older. Someone told us when we she still had grey eyes that as I have brown and DH has hazel we couldn't produce a DD with grey eyes!!! Just need to look at her eyebrows to see she is DH's.... Poor girl!!

DS now has the most beautiful dark brown eyes. :)

All caucasian babies are born with blue eyes

See I've always been told this yet our eldest - other family members have traced back generations both DH and my families and all Caucasian - but our first was born with dark black eyes. Next few days they lightened to a lovely steel grey then at 6 weeks dark brown.

People who were never there say we must be 'mistaken'.

I was expecting red heads ? in both families or blond as both DH and I were bold DC but dark brown as adults. They were dark hair from the start. DH had family made a few comments about that.

I like badbride explination - it's not hard to follow so I don't get why the don't teach genetics properly in schools. Point of the dominate recessive in plants and then say in humans its more complex with hair and eyes.

Do you have any Scottish or Irish heritage?

1-2% of the world's population have red hair.
2 to 6% of Northwest Europeans are redheads.
But 13% of Scots do. And at least 30% of the population are red head gene carriers.
And 10% of Irish people do. And its estimated 46% are red head gene carriers.

Apparently there are three main types of red head but there are other rarer types. Each of these types originated from one person!

For a child to have red hair, both parents must be carriers of the same type and there is a 25% chance that their offspring will have it. (Thats why even though theres a lot more red head carriers than you might expect, you do get as many red heads - you have to be the right type of red head carrier too. The three main types break down to 10%, 9% and 2.5% of the British population being carriers.)

They think being a red head is an adaption to Scotland's poor weather and lack of sunshine (it gets less sunshine than Sweden due to cloud).

*you don't get as many red heads

DH is black, I'm a blue eyed brunette. One of our children is blonde with grey eyes. Genes are a funny thing!

Yes it's genetically possible :) I remember watching the Maury show where a black couple was on the show. The wife had a red head, pale skinned, blue eyed baby and the husband was so sure it wasn't his and that his wife had cheated on him, so they done a DNA test, the baby was his

@various and sugarplum: thanks, glad you liked the explanation!

Actually, I don't know why they don't go into this in more detail at school. AFAIK, there are no "normal" human physical traits (height, eye/hair/skin colour) that obey simple dominant/ recessive relationships. The only things that do are certain genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, and even then, it's not always that simple.

Far better the point to the wonder of the sheer complexity of human genetics, and that's even before you add the influence of diet/ environment into the equation.

DD2 was born with dark brown eyes, they looked like chocolate buttons! They are a bit lighter now but still brown. Our other 3 dc had the dark blue.

I must say, mil was a bit about dd2, I think she thought I'd been getting extra deliveries from the milkman too! By the age of 2 dd2 looked the spit of dh though

DD1 had the most gorgeous red hair until she was about 2 now it's blonde like the others. In some lights you get shimmers of red. People don't believe us unless they see a photo.

Aren't some people strange about children looking different?!

I was born with olive skin, black curls and bright green eyes. From pale, blue/grey eyed parents.

My gran, who had Alzheimer's, declared me a 'foundling' and told everyone I was left on the doorstep!

My dd has bright blue eyes and blonde curls, so we are total opposites too.

Myself and my husband are dark haired and have blue eyes. Both families are ALL dark haired with variations on eye colour but most blue.

We produced 2 daughters. One a flame redhead (Born with black hair which fell out after a few weeks ) with a mass of curls and very pale. She loves having red hair. The youngest is a blond with tinges of red splashed through her hair. And she has a slight tan to her skin. Both blue eyed.

I know my great granny on my dads side came over from ireland with her family and they think she has red hair. On my husbands side a geat great granny or something apparantly had red hair. So we think it has been hanging around both families for about 100 years or so but not making any redheads until we got together !

I thought all babies (well - caucasian babies?) were born with dark greyish eyes, like a slate grey/blue.

Ds3 is on my lap and at 12 days old has dark grey eyes. His brothers have blue eyes...I have blue eyes...I can't remember what colour his father's eyes are but we'll see what his do in a few weeks I suppose.

Badbride I'm interested to learn that lighter eyes means something isn't working properly! Is that it? Or was it just a quick way to explain iyswim - does it mean those of us with blue eyes have a genetic malfunction somewhere? And would that affect anything else, such as our response to certain illnesses or such?

Really interesting.

By the way OP your dd sounds really lovely

Don't worry about what people think. DH has dark brown eyes, mine are hazel. We both have dark hair ( well, mine is blonde at the moment thanks to l'oreal ). One of our DDs is blonde with blue eyes, the other (3 months old) is reddish with blue eyes. We've had silly jokes about going on Jeremy Kyle for a DNA test, but I've learned to laugh it off.