Most babies are born with brown, blue, or grayish-blue eyes, and not all newborns have blue eyes at birth.

Typical newborn eye colors

  • A large study of full-term newborns found about 63% had brown eyes, around 21% had blue eyes, and a smaller percentage had green or hazel eyes.
  • Newborns with lighter skin are more often born with blue or gray eyes, while babies with darker complexions are more commonly born with brown eyes from day one.

Why they often look blue or gray

  • Many babies are born with light blue or gray eyes because their irises do not yet have much melanin, the pigment that gives eyes, hair, and skin their color.
  • As the baby is exposed to light after birth, melanocyte cells start producing more melanin, and the eye color can deepen or shift over time.

When babies’ eye color changes

  • Eye color often changes gradually over the first 6–12 months, sometimes up to about 2–3 years, as melanin builds up in the iris.
  • Light newborn eyes may turn green, hazel, or brown, while already dark brown eyes usually stay brown because they already contain high melanin levels.

Myths and special cases

  • The common saying that all babies are born with blue eyes is a myth; many infants of African, Asian, Hispanic, and other ancestries are born with clearly brown eyes.
  • A few babies have heterochromia (two different-colored eyes or an iris with two tones), usually due to variations in melanin distribution and genetics.

TL;DR: Newborns’ eyes are most often brown, blue, or grayish-blue at birth, depending on melanin and genetics, and the color commonly shifts during the first year as pigment increases.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.