Left-handedness

Will they be a lefty?

About 10% of people are left-handed. The genetic component is real but small — handedness is also influenced by the baby’s position in the womb and prenatal hormones.

Mom's dominant hand
Dad's dominant hand
Chance of being left-handed
9.5%vs. 10% baseline
Most outcomes are typical — and lefties have always done just fine.
Compared to baseline
For your baby9.5%
Average baby10.0%
How accurate is this, honestly?
Accuracy~10% baseline

About 10% of people are left-handed, a remarkably stable figure across most populations studied (Papadatou-Pastou et al. 2020 meta-analysis of nearly 2.4 million people). The two-parents-righty / one-parent-lefty / two-parents-lefty pattern of ~9.5% / ~19.5% / ~26% comes from large twin and family studies — heritability sits around 25%, lower than most people guess.

GWAS work has identified specific contributing variants — PCSK6 and LRRTM1 are the best-characterized — but no single "handedness gene." Prenatal factors (intrauterine position, birth weight, twin status) and developmental noise account for the rest.

Practical part: handedness doesn't reliably emerge until age 3–4. Don't try to push a baby toward right-handedness with feeding or play — they'll figure it out.

Sources: Papadatou-Pastou M et al. Psychol Bull 146:481–524 (2020), "Human handedness: a meta-analysis"; Brandler WM & Paracchini S. Trends Mol Med 20:83–90 (2014), "The genetic relationship between handedness and neurodevelopmental disorders."

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