Scientific odds of the royal baby being born with red hair

EVERYONE wonders what their future baby will look like.

So it’s no surprise attention has already turned to what the future Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will look like — and more specifically, if it will have red hair.

Well, there is some scientific calculations you can do to figure out if the probability the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s baby will have their distinctive features.

Babies are born with half of their mother and father’s genes, but some are more dominant.

Social media has been abuzz with excitement since Kensington Palace announced Meghan is pregnant, due to give birth to a royal baby in spring 2019.

For the baby to be a redhead it will need to have two copies of the red hair gene, a mutation of the MC1R gene, because it is a recessive, or non-dominant gene.

That means if neither parent is ginger, they both need to carry the gene and pass it on.

If that was the case they would have just a 25 per cent chance of a redhead baby.

Redhead genes can be passed down through generations but still no ginger hair appears.

That’s why sometimes it comes as a surprise when a baby suddenly appears with red hair.

In the case of the royal couple, with Harry being a natural redhead, if Meghan carries the gene, that gives their baby a 50 per cent chance of being ginger.

But if Meghan does not have ginger genes, that chance falls to zero.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles both carried copies of the redhead gene for Prince Harry to end up with red hair.

So basically the science comes down to whether Meghan has any secret redhead genes.

On the first day of the tour, Prince Harry already showed his excitement, addressing the news in his first official speech at Admiralty House on Tuesday afternoon.

“(We) genuinely couldn’t think a better place to announce the upcoming baby,” he said.

But he did not give any hints away as to what the sex of the baby was, pausing before saying “be it a boy or a girl”.

After the royal baby news, a US forensic artist provided his take on what the couple’s child may look like, putting together mock-ups after studying photographs.

Joe Mullins predicts a girl would have brown eyes and black hair — while a boy would have blue eyes and brown hair. His work takes into account the parents’ colouring, predominant genes, features and complexions.

In 2012, Mr Mullins, who has worked in forensics for 17 years, predicted the looks of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children and the future looks of celebrities including Madonna and Britney Spears.

According to his bio, the images do match with reality.

“When I did Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise I did the child as a boy, but the image actually does look a lot like Suri,” Mr Mullins said.

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