Expert: Dana Krempels, Ph.D. - 12/27/2007

Question
My husband and I just gave birth to our first child 2 weeks ago, a beautiful baby boy. He came out with golden blonde hair. We both were blonde as children, but we were born with dark heads. We were told that it is very rare for babies to be born blonde; that usually they start dark and eventually get lighter. We're wondering what are the odds that babies are born with light hair color, and how likely is it to stay like that? Are there any other traits that are particular to blonde babies that we should know about?

Answer
Dear Veronick,

It's not at all uncommon for babies to be born with light-colored fuzz hair that gradually darkens as the child develops.  Or it could stay blonde.  Since both you and your husband developed darker hair as you grew up (which is the most common scenario), it's likely that this will happen to your child, too.

Hair color is much more complex, genetically, than people realize, and it's controlled by many different genes.  Because of this, it's nearly impossible to accurately predict a person's eventual hair color without knowing a LOT about both parent's genetics with respect to hair color, as well as the likelihood of each parent's alleles being inherited by the child.

Blonde/light hair is generally considered to be a recessive trait, and though there are no particular genes linked to blonde hair that I'm aware, it's possible that if the child has recessive expression of hair color, he might also express recessive conditions of other genes, depending on how many you and your husband share in common.  (His expressing recessive conditions will be more likely if you and your husband are from the same ethnic/genetic background.)

Congratulations on the new member of the family!

Dana