How to find out who the child will look like? Who will the child look like?

” №1/2014 15.06.16

The baby is still growing and developing in the mother’s tummy, and the parents are already starting to discuss who the child will look like... What signs the child inherits from the parents, why his eyes are green and not brown, his lips are a bow, and not thin and straight... These questions and many others, of course, worry future mom and dad. Let's figure out who the child will look like.

Boy or girl? What determines the gender of the child?

During conception, the fusion of two sex cells occurs: a spermatozoon (male sex cell) penetrates into the egg (female germ cell). Each of them contains 23 chromosomes, one of them is sex - X or Y. As a result, when two germ cells merge, the embryo gets 46 chromosomes, two of which determine its sex.

What determines the gender of the child? The sex of the child depends on the father, more precisely on which sperm X or Y will fertilize the egg, in which there is always only the X chromosome. If the fetus has sex chromosomes XX, then a girl will be born, and if XY - a boy. Due to the fact that the child receives 50% of the chromosomes from the mother and 50% from the father, he can adopt the features of the appearance of both parents.

It is quite difficult to guess who the child will look like, one can only guess, guided by knowledge of genetics. Every person has dominant (strong) and recessive (weak) genes. For example, a mother with brown eyes may have a dominant gene for brown eyes and a recessive gene for light eyes. There may also be two dominant brown-eyed genes. But if two light-eyed genes meet, then the baby's eyes will be light.

For example, dad and mom have brown eyes (they can have two dominant brown-eyed genes or only one dominant gene and one recessive blue-eyed gene). In this case, their baby's eyes can be either brown or blue, depending on what combination of genes he gets. But the probability that the child's eyes will be brown is 3 chances out of 4, and that blue ones are only 1.

If you follow this rule, then a baby with brown eyes cannot be born to blue-eyed parents. After all, everyone has two recessive blue-eyed genes. But in rare cases, such parents can still give birth to a baby with brown eyes. The answer to why this happens is simple. For a certain trait (in our case, eye color), not one gene from each of the parents, but several are responsible. And it happens that one gene is responsible for several traits at once. So a whole group of genes is responsible for the color of the eyes. Each time their combination is different.

Intelligence is transmitted through the female line
The genes responsible for intelligence are located on the X chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes (XX), while men have only one (XY), so the genes responsible for intelligence are highly active in women, and a brilliant dad can pass on his incredible intelligence to his daughter, but not to his son.

Dominant genes always "win" the fight with recessive genes.

We have decided on the inheritance of eye color. Let's look at other characteristic features.

What kind of hair will the child have?

Will your child have straight or curly hair? Curly hair is a dominant trait. If one of the parents has curly hair, the baby will most likely also become the owner of curly hair, or at least wavy hair.

Will the baby have dimples?

If mom or dad has dimples on their cheeks or on their chin, then with a high degree of probability the baby will also become their owner.

Big or small ears?

Big ears from one of the parents are more likely to be passed on to the baby.

Nose "in daddy"?

Big nose, hump nose, wide nose - these are all dominant features. Therefore, if one of the parents has a similar characteristic shape of the nose, then most likely the baby will have the same “outstanding” one.

Genetic Surprises

Genes “work” together on the individuality of the child and sometimes present unexpected surprises to parents. For example, mom has a dominant gene for dark hair, and dad has blond hair. Their baby may be born with dark hair, or it may be with hair of an intermediate color. But when this child has his own children, their hair may be blond, since he inherited the blond hair gene from his father, which is recessive (the child has one dominant gene - responsible for dark hair, and the other recessive - responsible for blond) . So it turns out that the baby can inherit genes from relatives of previous generations, who previously “losed”, but he turned out to be “winners”.

If a red-haired curly-haired baby was born to parents with straight and blond hair, you should not be tormented by suspicions of cheating on your spouse just because the baby does not look like mom and dad. Take a closer look, he definitely has features similar to you, and someone in your family was the owner of a similar head of hair.

When a baby is born, parents often argue about who he looks like more. But you must admit that this is not important at all, because for you he is the most desired, best and beloved!

Every mother is very interested in what traits he will inherit, while she imagines familiar and beloved features embodied on a tiny face. Is it possible to "program" a child to what he will look like, and why is the very fact of a child's similarity so important to his parents?

It turns out that subconsciously endowing the unborn child with their own traits, parents do this at all “not disinterestedly”. Their desires are guided by the parental instinct inherent in nature, since the very fact of the similarity of the child with the parents has a calming effect on the psyche and, as it were, ensures the fulfillment of the well-known desired settings:

• If baby looks like mom or dad his actions can be predicted. And so it will be easier to educate him.
• If the child will inherit the best features of the parents and relatives, then this will, as it were, provide him with the best and easiest life scenario.
• If Daughter looks like father, son looks like mother, then they are considered to be happy.
• If baby looks like dad, then this makes the newly-made father feel like a parent "to a greater extent": nature, as it were, emphasized the dominance of the father, repeating his main features in the heir.

The famous French pediatrician Michel Lacossier became interested in the similarity of children and their parents and conducted his study, which showed that most newborns are more like dad than mom, and by the age of three the ratio levels off, children change and become like both parents. From this, he concluded that nature deliberately arranged everything in this way in order to “start” the paternal instinct faster.

Indeed, if the answer to the question " what does the child look like?” is obvious to parents, their instincts “turn on” faster, forcing mom to take care of the baby, and dad to take care of mom and child, diligently “getting the mammoth”.

You have probably heard the expression that “all babies have the same face”, and only by the age of 3-4 years can we talk about any similarity between the child and the parents. In fact, there is little truth in this statement. It is only true that children change very quickly, but their pronounced features can be seen immediately after birth, and they practically do not change either with time or age. By the way, if outwardly a child can be similar to both parents, then in character he is usually in one person.

Genetics, more than parental imagination, will be able to answer this question. Each new person is another genetic experiment, it is a unique set of genes and cells that will never happen again, even with the same parents. However, to predict who does the baby look like nevertheless it is possible.

• If dad has brown eyes and mom has blue, gray or green (or vice versa), the baby is more likely to have dad's brown eyes.
• If mom or dad has curly hair, the first child in 90% of cases will inherit charming curls.
• The physique and hair color are most often inherited by gender: a boy looks like a dad, and a girl looks like a mom.
• Intelligence is transmitted through the female line! The genes responsible for intelligence are located on the X chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes (XX), while men have only one (XY), so the genes responsible for intelligence are highly active in women, and a brilliant dad can pass on his incredible intelligence to his daughter, but not to his son.

Is it possible to influence the appearance and character of the unborn child?

Genetics determines everything. 20% comes from the environment, fetal development, nutrition and early childhood care. And these are just the physical properties. The psyche and character traits generally depend on a huge number of factors. Therefore, many psychologists say out loud that the expectant mother may well influence the appearance and character of their unborn child. A mother's ability to imagine and "see" her baby long before his birth is truly a wonderful and magical property. So take note:

• If you want to the child looked like his father, often imagine your loved one, his smile, gait, look.
• Have a photograph of your husband with you, periodically glancing at it, while trying to imagine the voice depicted in the photo.
• If you want to avoid any objectionable features in the appearance of a child (for example, grandfather's ears or dad's long nose), imagine these features less, focusing on something else.
• Smile more and be happy, surround yourself with beautiful things, go out into nature, read good books and visit amazing and interesting places, meet good and pleasant people - all this will affect your general condition and mood, and therefore your character and mood baby.
• Already now strongly love growing and living in your body.

The art of giving birth to beautiful

Do you know that a thousand years ago in India, China and Egypt there were special prenatal homes where expectant mothers lived and spent time before giving birth. They were surrounded by beauty, peace, magnificent gardens, art objects. They studied music there, drew, meditated and performed special
In ancient Greece, there was a whole science about the birth of beautiful and smart children - callipedia. Her followers called for marriage of representatives of different peoples and nations, different physiques and characters, because as a result of such marriages, beautiful and intelligent offspring are born.

Before childbirth and throughout pregnancy, moms and dads discuss what the baby will look like. Everyone wants the baby to be a spitting image of him, but not us, but genetics will decide what kind of eyes and hair, gait and even habits the baby will have.

In general terms, we can say this, the child will be similar to the parent or family member whose gene is dominant, that is, it will be stronger. Owners of a recessive gene, that is, one that is weaker, alas, will be disappointed in the lack of similarity. Although this will not affect the huge amount of love and care that the baby will be surrounded with from the first seconds of life.

The opinion of psychologists is that the similarity of a baby with mom or dad allows new parents to become closer to a new person and automatically turns on maternal and paternal instincts. The fact has been scientifically proven that if a baby looks like a mom or dad, then this allows you to become closer to each other, strengthen as a family, and feel responsible. That is, morally tune in to the creation of a strong and stable cell of society.

On the other hand, if a child is very similar to one of the parents, grandparents, then it is more difficult to let him go into adulthood with his thoughts and his foundations, since parents see their projection in their own child, and try to protect him, the longer from the real peace.

It would seem that such a simple question of who the child will look like can cause so much friction, although this does not affect the immense and reckless love of mom and dad, which, by the way, is a scientific fact.

Can o o talk for a long time How genetics affects the appearance and internal state of the child. There are many types of tasks, how to calculate certain facial features, hair or eye color. Genetic analysis, which is now offered by almost every clinic, is available to everyone, and it does not cost as much as, for example, 8 years ago. With its help, you can calculate a lot, for example, is it possible for a given couple to have children together, since some incompatibilities can turn into serious illnesses for a child. Recommend by many gynecologists and therapists, children's specialists, first of all, to find out how compatible the couple is.

So, genetics dictates its own rules. There are two types of genes - dominant and recessive, one that is stronger and weaker. It will depend on them who the child will look like. For example, the gene for blue eyes is recessive, while the gene for brown eyes is dominant. What eye color will your child have, see here. If dad has dark eyes and mom has blue eyes, the baby will be brown-eyed in 4 cases out of 5. The dominant genes are: the gene for dark hair, the gene that carries information about the dimple on the chin, the gene that will make your crumbs have plump lips.

But, genetics is not as simple as it seems, because even if dad has dark hair and eyes, but his DNA contains a recessive gene for blond hair and eyes, for example, great-grandfather had light eyes, then the possibility that parents will be born fair-haired and light-eyed miracle, increases several times. By the way, even if both parents have brown eyes, but in their family there were blue-eyed relatives (close, blood relatives), then the baby may have the same heavenly eyes as, for example, a great-grandmother.

Of course, genetics can determine the external similarity, and even character, behavior. But just as much depends on parents, especially character traits, and as we know, children absorb bad habits or obstinate dispositions better than all the good that we try to invest in them. Therefore, the kids will observe the correct communication with each other, courtesy and respect, and in the end, they themselves will become such.

Many may object that it is genetics that influences who the child will look like, and the same on the habits, behavior of the baby, and the way it is, a certain percentage is transmitted to our children. But there are many scientific facts proving the opposite. For example, adopted children over time completely copy the behavior of their parents, become like them internally, and also get the facial expressions of mom and dad. Although another thing can be opposed to this - blind crumbs, not knowing what their parents look like, repeat the facial expressions, habits of mommy and daddy, and grow similar not only externally, but also internally.

Another genetic factor that will allow you to know who the child will look like. Provided that you know the gender of your unborn baby, you can find out who he will look like, mom or dad, of course, not 100%. At conception, a boy receives his mother's X chromosome and his father's Y, and so the X chromosome is responsible for external data (eye and hair color, a certain facial contour, etc.). That is, the boy is more likely to be like his mother. And a girl, receiving two X chromosomes from mom and dad, can be similar to both one and the other parent, with the same probability.

Signs can tell whether a boy or a girl will be born to mom and dad. For example, you might have heard that if a woman loses her beauty during pregnancy, then a girl will be born to her, and if on the contrary she shines, then a boy. Also, by the shape of the abdomen, you can determine the sex of the crumbs, if the tummy is sharp (if you look at the woman from the back, it is almost not noticeable that she is pregnant), it means a boy, if the tummy of the future mother is round, then a girl.

So, who will the child look like, judging by the signs. The fact is that signs are based on the observations of people, therefore, it is impossible to rely on them, and not on genetics. In essence, all signs are only myths, but they also turn out to be true in many cases. For example, they say that the first child always looks like the father, and the second will be a copy of the mother.

There is also a belief that a pregnant woman can partially, with the help of her own thoughts, backed by faith, choose the desired appearance of the unborn child. For example, a mother chooses a photo of a baby she likes on the Internet and looks at it during pregnancy, imagining that her baby is very similar to the baby from the photo, communicates with the baby, dreams about how her life will change when a small miracle appears in it And how surprised my mother is, after a couple of years, having found an abandoned photo of a child in the closet, which is very, very similar to her child. The thing is that a woman's intuition increases during pregnancy and perhaps she really predicts how the unborn child will look like. There is also an opinion that the power of thoughts during the bearing of a baby is much stronger, and they are brought to life faster and most clearly.

There is another popular opinion about the gender of the baby. If the husband abstained from sex for a long time, then the wife will become pregnant and give birth to a boy. Also, to conceive a boy, they say, you need to lie on your right side during attempts. The main thing is to be careful in moderation, but not to overdo it, because the main thing is the health of the baby, mom and dad, and not whose eyes he will have, with their radiance he will make you laugh and rejoice more than once.

Who will the baby look like? This is something parents often think about. Is it really possible to predict what an unborn child will look like?

Boy or girl?

Who will be born - a boy or a girl, depends on which father's cell merged with mother's to give rise to a new life. Half of the father's gametes contain the X chromosome, its fusion with the mother's egg leads to the birth of a girl, the other half of the father's gametes contains the Y chromosome, the appearance of a boy is programmed in it. Depending on which sperm fertilizes the female egg - with an X-chromosome or with a Y-, either a daughter or a son will be born.

Boys are born a little more than girls, obviously because they are fragile creatures, less resistant to disease, and any breakdown in the genes of the parents is primarily reflected in them. The vulnerability of boys, by the way, is also connected with the fact that they have only one X chromosome. In a girl, if she received some kind of damaged gene on the X chromosome from one of the parents, its effect is compensated by the same “healthy” gene from the other parent. And in boys, genes on one X chromosome are not duplicated by genes on the other. Therefore, many hereditary diseases appear only in them. Some of the boys are not destined to live to puberty and leave offspring. That's nature and creates male representatives, as it were, with a margin.

But this preponderance is so insignificant that we do not sin against the truth if we say that each of us has the same chance of receiving both a son and a daughter as heirs.

The quote is partly true

The conventional wisdom that girls are more likely to look like dads, and boys look like moms, genetics confirm only half. Indeed, boys often look like mothers. They inherit only one X chromosome - from their mother, and this chromosome is rich in genes responsible for appearance: for the shape of the eyebrows, facial contours, skin color ... Dad's Y chromosome is poor in genes responsible for facial features.

For girls, the situation is different. They receive one X chromosome from their mother and one X chromosome from their father, so girls are equally likely to resemble both their mother and father.

Are the eyes brown or blue?

We were taught at school that genes are “weak” - recessive, as geneticists say, and there are dominant, clogging the “weak”. The blue-eyed gene is “weak”, the brown-eyed gene is dominant. If a child receives a gene for blue eyes from one parent and brown eyes from the other, his eyes will be brown. But how to guess which gene each of the parents will pass on to him if they have two of these genes? Indeed, behind the brown-eyedness of the father, for example, a “weak” blue-eyed gene can also be hidden.

A couple with brown eyes has three chances in four to have a brown-eyed child and one chance to have a blue-eyed one. Blue-eyed parents, in theory, cannot have brown-eyed children. After all, each of them carries only recessive genes. But scientists know that although very, very rarely, blue-eyed couples give birth to babies with brown eyes. The explanation for this fact must be sought in the fact that for any stroke of appearance, for any sign or some kind of disease, we are responsible not for one gene from each parent, as scientists used to think, but for a whole group of genes. And sometimes one gene is responsible for several functions at once. Here, a number of genes are responsible for the color of our eyes, which each time are combined in a different way.

And yet the simplest regularity can be traced. Parents with black eyes cannot wait for blue-eyed children. Brown-eyed people, people with “hazel” and “honey” eyes, may well have blue-eyed children, but more often they still turn out to be brown-eyed. Gray-eyed and blue-eyed couples are very likely to get kids with the same eye color.

family traits

In general, geneticists have noticed that some obvious, eye-catching feature of appearance is often passed down from generation to generation, and they cite the lip of the Habsburgs as an example. The Habsburg dukes are a dynasty that ruled in different countries of Europe from the 13th century to the beginning of the 20th century. On the surviving ceremonial portraits of Emperor Maximilian, Maria Theresa of Austria, Alphonse XII of Spain - representatives of this dynasty, it is clearly seen that they all had the same narrow, protruding lower jaw and drooping lower lip, which made the mouth half open.

With a high probability, children will get both the short-fingeredness of one of the parents (very short phalanxes of the fingers), and the sixth finger, if one is present in mom or dad.

Is your hair straight or curly?

Light hair color, like blue eyes, is a recessive trait. If mom and dad are fair-haired, then their baby will be white-haired. And if one of the parents has dark hair, and the other with light hair, their heir's hair will be either dark or a medium shade between the hair color of dad and mom. Just keep in mind that the descendants of the Eastern Slavs are all fair in early childhood, and only by the age of 10-12 their hair acquires the shade that remains until the appearance of gray hair.

Curly hair is the dominant feature: if at least one of the parents has curly hair, the child is very likely to also have curly hair, or at least wavy hair.

Nose and ears

Some geneticists believe that the genes responsible for the large hump nose are dominant. If one of the parents has such a nose, the child will have it too.

With a high probability, the baby can get a dimple on the chin if his mom or dad has it. And big mommy or daddy ears.

Tiny or giant?

It is difficult to predict how tall the baby will be when it grows up. The influence of the environment is very great in this matter: how the child ate, what was sick ... If he manages to avoid the influence of extremely unfavorable circumstances in childhood, which we sincerely wish him, then the forecast can be made as follows: it is practically impossible that the child will grow up with tall parents only up to 150-160 cm, that is, it will also be high. As a rule, the child stops at the average between the growth of mom and dad. But if he eats well in childhood, moves a lot, sleeps the hours set for him, and even during the period of intensive bone growth receives enough calcium from food, he has a chance to outgrow short parents.

We love them anyway

But in general, is it really so important what kind of ears and what kind of nose your baby will have? We love our children not for beautiful eyes. We love them... you can't even tell why. Probably because they are our continuation, our hopes, our support in the future, and our cross, to be honest. And for the work invested in them, we love them. No matter what color the baby's eyes are, as long as he grows up healthy. So let's not blame geneticists for losing interest in the topic of how a person's appearance traits are inherited back in the 40s of the last century. Now they have thrown all their efforts into the study of hereditary diseases and are looking for how humanity can be rid of them. And this, of course, is much more important.
Personal opinion

Singer and TV presenter Anna Sedokova:

- During pregnancy, I really wanted my daughter to have brown eyes, like the heroines from the television series. And my wish came true, despite the fact that there are no brown-eyed people in our family. In general, I think: as you imagine the future baby, so it will be. My friend, being in position, all the time admired the picture brought from the trip, and her baby was born very similar to the person depicted in this very picture. And I also think that the child will inherit the character traits of the one who, at the moment of conception, will want him more.

Marina Kirina

The famous French pediatrician Michel Lacossier became interested in the similarity of children and their parents and conducted his study, which showed that most newborns are more like dad than mom, and by the age of three the ratio levels off, children change and become like both parents. From this, he concluded that nature deliberately arranged everything in this way in order to “start” the paternal instinct faster.

Indeed, if the answer to the question " what does the child look like?” is obvious to parents, their instincts “turn on” faster, forcing mom to take care of the baby, and dad to take care of mom and child, diligently “getting the mammoth”.

You have probably heard the expression that “all babies have the same face”, and only by the age of 3-4 years can we talk about any similarity between the child and the parents. In fact, there is little truth in this statement. It is only true that children change very quickly, but their pronounced features can be seen immediately after birth, and they practically do not change either with time or age. By the way, if outwardly a child can be similar to both parents, then in character he is usually in one person.

Genetics, more than parental imagination, will be able to answer this question. Each new person is another genetic experiment, it is a unique set of genes and cells that will never happen again, even with the same parents. However, to predict who does the baby look like nevertheless it is possible.

• If dad has brown eyes and mom has blue, gray or green (or vice versa), the baby is more likely to have dad's brown eyes.
• If mom or dad has curly hair, the first child in 90% of cases will inherit charming curls.
• The physique and hair color are most often inherited by gender: a boy looks like a dad, and a girl looks like a mom.
• Intelligence is transmitted through the female line! The genes responsible for intelligence are located on the X chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes (XX), while men have only one (XY), so the genes responsible for intelligence are highly active in women, and a brilliant dad can pass on his incredible intelligence to his daughter, but not to his son.

Dominant and recessive traits in humans

(for some traits, the genes that control them are indicated)

incomplete dominance(the genes controlling the trait are indicated)

Source 1
Source 2