So stand up for her and yourself and accept and love her just the way she is, even if it is against the common views where you live. Skin color is all about genes. There are several substances that determine a person’s skin color, but melanin is the most important one. Your little one is about the size of a sweet potato. 10th ed. The glands may start to produce vernix, a greasy substance that protects the skin in the womb. If you do find out whether youâre expecting a little girl or boy, and you want to share the good news with family and friends, you might want to have a gender reveal party to let the cat out of the bag. But since at this point baby is teeny tiny (about the size of a poppy seed), this new formation of skin isn’t something you can see with the naked eye. The patterns are unique to your baby because they're formed under the direction of her particular genes. The more melanin that's produced (a process that's regulated by genes), the darker your baby's skin. When does baby skin color develop during pregnancy? If you buy something through a link on this site, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Fingers and toes have completed their development, ready to be counted at birth. A couple can have a baby with a skin color that isn’t between their own. Fetal lung development continues as the lungs start producing surfactant to help them inflate properly. Okay, these are two separate questions, so I'm going to break them down into two answers. I have three children all for my husband. At this time, some babies get a yellowish skin color due to physiological jaundice; common in newborn babies. That’s because cells called melanocytes become more active after birth, producing melanin, a pigment that forms skin color. Your baby continues to plump up, adding fat. Your baby will likely gain about a half a pound each week from now until birth. LIDDY i agree chica.adios. The digestive tract and sensory organs begin to develop. I definitely think you should take her to a specialist to sort out the reasons for eczema and itchy skin. :-). All rights reserved. “By 20 weeks, you can see the fingernails and toenails clearly,” Emery says. Hair follicles start to form during week 14 of pregnancy, and by the 15th week, a hair pattern begins to appear on baby’s scalp as the hair pushes up through the skin. Take care of yourself and your little girl. But body hands and legs are really dark. Well, they are! Over the coming six months, the baby’s true skin color will develop, which is entirely controlled by genes, and not something we can control at all. She had a lot of complications and is currently in the hospital after 4 months. I wouldn’t worry or do anything if I were you. Our children need us to love them just the way they are; not wishing for them to be something else. A primitive face takes form with large dark circles for eyes. The way a baby’s skin color develops over time is as follows. The beginnings of teeth are forming. But I have never heard about a worrying skin condition that would just be concentrated to the legs. But how much (or how little) hair your infant is born with—and what color it turns out to be—all boils down to genetics, and has nothing to do with when their hair begins to grow. There are so many children with parents of different origins, there are adopted children, foster care, all sorts of reasons why a child may not look exactly like one or both of their parents. If it is just a worry of a beauy flaw – let it go! I’ve answered the mom here and a lot of people have commented. Coolen, et al. As you can see, your baby will be very busy in the weeks and months before the big debut. At around week 19 of pregnancy, baby’s skin glands start to produce an oily, cheese-like substance called the vernix, which is designed to safeguard the skin against the surrounding, potentially irritating amniotic fluid. At 9 weeks of pregnancy, the cells that will later produce melanin – the substance that accounts for skin color – first appear in your baby's skin. Not only will it likely thin out, but it’ll also probably lighten or darken during the first few years of life. Children with melanin are BEAUTIFUL and you guys should be absolutely ashamed of yourself… How selfish are some of you? Mayo Clinic:"Fetal development: What happens during the second trimester?" I, (being undereducated in what it truly meant to be biracial) assumed all mixed children were a perfect blend of each parent… and expected her to be darker than me and lighter than him… I thought my family was going to fall apart due to my daughters skin tone…, I literally spent weeks praying for her melanin to come in like RIGHT NOW because I was being judged so ruthlessly like my child wasn’t his… and I just wanted her to be undeniably his to everyone…, The fact that I let my guy and his family throw me into postpartum depression, in my most vulnerable moment as a mother.. dealing with hormones I didn’t have control over… all because the color of my child’s skin tone… it really made me feel like the worst mother in the world.. literally I didn’t know how to forgive myself for crying over her LACK of melanin early on…, It really bothers me that so many women are over here complaining about their child’s complexion with absolutely no valid reasoning… other than being prejudice against light and dark skin tones… a fair skinned child is just as beautiful as a dark skinned child.