What color will the baby's eyes be?
02. 04. 2026

When expecting a child, several questions come to mind: Will they have my eyes? What color hair will they have? Today, we will try to understand if heredity has anything to do with it.

The eyes

What depends on the baby:

The amount of melanin and melanosomes plays an essential role in the color of a baby's eyes.

The level of melanin and melanosomes varies from person to person, so it is not hereditary, yet it plays a role in the color of a baby's eyes. More specifically, it affects the intensity and depth of the colors.

If a baby has a low amount of melanosomes and melanin, they are more likely to have light-colored eyes.

If a baby has a large amount of melanosomes and melanin, they are more likely to have dark eyes.

What depends on the parents:

Eye color is controlled by at least three pairs of genes, spread across chromosomes 15 and 19.

Chromosome 15 has two genes. Chromosome 19 has one gene.

But how does it work?

There is a hierarchy:

If the baby has: 15A blue + 15B blue + 19 blue = blue eyes.

If the baby has: 15A green + 15B green + 19 brown = brown eyes.

If the baby has: 15A blue + 15B blue + 19 green = green eyes.

Therefore: the brown gene is dominant over all other genes, while the blue gene is recessive.

Example in pictures:

If Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have a child, it will most likely have green eyes because Taylor has blue eyes and Travis has green eyes.

And what about Lena Situations? Lena has brown eyes, Seb has green eyes, so their child will have brown eyes.

Hair

Hair color is mainly determined by two forms of melanin:

1- Eumelanin produces dark pigments for black and brown hair.

2- Pheomelanin produces light pigments that result in blonde or red hair.

The balance between these two types of melanin creates the varied palette of hair colors that we see in highlights.

And as with eyes, is there a hierarchy?

Well, yes!

Brown hair is typically a dominant trait, requiring only one brown hair gene to manifest.

Blonde hair is generally recessive, meaning that two blonde genes are needed for it to be visible.

Red hair is a rare color, the result of a genetic modification that controls the type of melanin in the hair. Redheads have more pheomelanin and less eumelanin, which gives their hair its unique color.

For example:

If Leonardo DiCaprio and the Mona Lisa had had a baby, it would have had brown hair.

But if Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt had had a baby, it would have had blonde hair.