A Nigerian couple in London have defied genetics, and astounded researchers by giving birth to a blond, blue-eyed baby.
Baby Nmachi Ihegboro was born at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Kent. At first it was believed that baby Nmachi was an albino, but doctors ruled out that possibility.
Neither of the parents have any mixed race family history, which is why the case is rare.
“She doesn’t look like an albino child anyway – not like the ones I’ve seen back in Nigeria or in books,” father Ben Ihegboro told The Sun. “She just looks like a healthy white baby.” The father, also ruled out any possibility that the baby was not his. “Of course, she’s mine. My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn’t been, the baby still wouldn’t look like that,” said Ben.
Professor Bryan Sykes, head of Human Genetics at Oxford University, claims that in mixed race humans, the lighter variant of skin tone may come out in a child – and this can sometimes be startlingly different to the skin of the parents.
The professor also explained that the possibility is common in the Caribbean where interracial mixing is common, but not in a country like Nigeria where there is little mixing.
He said that both parents would have needed some form of white ancestry for a pale version of their genes to be passed on. The only way to explain such an outcome is due to some form of genetic mutation.
