When Do Blue Eyes Change?

When Do Blue Eyes Change
Are All Babies Born with Blue Eyes? – You’ve probably heard that all babies are born with blue eyes—but experts say it’s 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. Your child’s newborn eye color may be blue, but that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily stay that way.

“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.

How late can blue eyes change?

When Does a Baby’s Eye Color Stop Changing? – Your baby’s eye color may start to change during their first year, but it may not be totally set for a few years. ‌ Research has found that most children’s eyes will stop changing color when they’re around 6 years old. But about 15% of people have changes in eye color all their life because of their genetic makeup‌.

Can blue eyes change after 1 year?

How can I tell if my baby’s eyes will stay blue? – There’s always a chance that your baby’s blue eyes will be permanent, but it’s more likely they’ll become hazel, green or brown before they even take their first steps. Eye color change will often taper off around six months, but some babies’ eyes keep changing hues for a year or even up to three.

Until then, there’s no way to know for certain what color your baby’s eyes will ultimately be. And while it isn’t entirely foolproof, a pretty good indicator of whether or not your child’s eye color will change is to inspect their eyes from the side. If their eyes are clear and bright blue, they may stay that way.

If their eyes are a darker blue and there are flecks of gold throughout, they may change to hazel, green or brown.

At what age is eye color permanent?

– Your baby’s first birthday is a significant milestone, especially if they get to dive into a cake for the first time. But it’s also about the age you can safely say your baby’s eye color is set. “Typically, a baby’s eyes can change color during the first year of life,” says Benjamin Bert, MD, an ophthalmologist at Memorial Care Orange Coast Medical Center.

However, Daniel Ganjian, MD, a pediatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, says the most significant changes in color occur between 3 and 6 months. But the hue you see at 6 months may still be a work in progress — which means you should wait a few months (or more) before filling in the eye color section of the baby book.

Although you can’t predict the exact age your baby’s eye color will be permanent, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) says most babies have the eye color that will last their lifetime by the time they’re about 9 months old. However, some can take up to 3 years to settle into a permanent eye color.

Can blue baby eyes turn brown?

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When Do Blue Eyes Change Eye color isn’t set in stone until age 2. (Image credit: sxc.hu, user ‘maplec’) While only 1 in 5 Caucasian adults have blue eyes in the United States, most are born blue-eyed. Their irises change from blue to hazel or brown during infancy. Why? “It has to do with the amount of melanin they’re born with and how that melanin increases after birth,” said Norman Saffra, Chairman of Ophthalmology at Maimonedes Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Melanin, Saffra explained, is a pigment, and the more you have of it in your eyes, hair and skin, the darker they are, and thus the more sunlight they reflect.
A small deposit of melanin in the irises — the muscular rings around the pupils — makes them appear blue, while a medium amount makes them green or hazel, and a lot of it makes the irises brown.

Babies aren’t born with all the melanin they are destined to have. “The maturation process continues post-utero,” Saffra told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site of LiveScience. “Eye color isn’t set until 2 years of age.” He likened the gradual buildup of melanin in the irises to chicks developing feathers after birth.

Though some babies of non-white ethnicities also have blue eyes at birth which then brown over time, the effect is far less common than with Caucasian babies. ” Darkly-pigmented individuals usually have brown-eyed babies, because the babies have more pigment to start out with,” Saffra said. Original article on Live Science,

Natalie Wolchover was a staff writer for Live Science from 2010 to 2012 and is currently a senior physics writer and editor for Quanta Magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Tufts University and has studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Along with the staff of Quanta, Wolchover won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing for her work on the building of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Her work has also appeared in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best Writing on Mathematics, Nature, The New Yorker and Popular Science.

She was the 2016 winner of the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award, an annual prize for young science journalists, as well as the winner of the 2017 Science Communication Award for the American Institute of Physics.

Do babies blue eyes get lighter?

When do Babies Eyes Change Color? – Dr. Kaplan notes that though eyes typically darken over time, lightening can occur in babies. Babies born with dark brown eyes or who develop dark brown eyes during the first year of life will have eyes that stay dark brown.