her newborn daughter, she was
“speechless.”
“She’s a miracle baby,” the 35-year-
old mother said yesterday. “But
still, what on Earth happened
here?”
What happened is that baby
Nmachi is a blond, blue-eyed white
baby born to two black Nigerian
immigrant parents at a London
hospital.
“The first thing I said was, ‘What
the flip?’ ” said the father, Ben
Ihegboro. “We both just sat there
after the birth staring at her for
ages — not saying anything.”
He quickly sought to dispel any
speculation.
“Of course she is mine. My wife is
true to me,” the 44-year-old
customer service adviser said.
“Even if she hadn’t been, the baby
still wouldn’t look like that.”
Genetics experts don’t believe in
miracles, but they didn’t have any
simple answers to the mystery of
baby Nmachi. Instead, they offered
three theories:
She’s the result of a gene mutation
unique to her. If that is the case,
Nmachi would pass the gene to her
children — and they, too, would
likely be white.
She’s the product of long-dormant
white genes, passed on to her by
her parents, that might have been
carried by their predecessors for
generations without surfacing until
now.
While doctors have said Nmachi is
not an outright albino, or lacking in
all pigment, they added that the
child may have some kind of
mutated version of the genetic
condition — and that her skin could
darken over time.
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