Big Babies

There was an item in my newspaper, a story about an unusually large baby born in Florida. It seems that a mom  who thought she was gong to deliver twins, instead gave birth to a baby that weighed over 14 pounds (6.4 kilos). No truth to the rumor that she is still screaming in pain. And the kicker to the story is that the woman (who looks very obese in pictures shown of her) didn't even realize she was pregnant until a month or so before delivery. What do you do with a baby that size when he wants to be held often, as all small ones do? It's either share the holds or d see a chiropractor for back strains.

Anyway, that big baby was one of the larger ones ever born in Florida. But the heaviest baby weight ever recorded according to The Guinness Book of World Records was the one a Canadian woman named Karen Bates delivered. That baby  boy who weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces (6.4 Kilos) and was 30 inches long. He was born way back in 1879, however, and died just 11 hours later. I am not sure if mom Karen died of shock when she saw that monster, but she probably wished she did.  Could you imagine carrying that baby for 45 minutes or so when he reached his first birthday and more than doubled his weight?

Just a year or so ago an mom in Indonesia gave birth to a baby that weighed 8.6 kilos.  But why are some babies so big at birth? I didn't know so I researched the subject and found that the biggest factor in heavy birth weight is not heredity, but instead the most obvious one. It's how fat is mom. If mom is a fatty, the baby is far more likely to be large too.  Some other factors that can produce a baby as fat as Kevin James or Melissa McCarthy include; heredity,  the age of the mom (older moms have heavier babies), and whether gestational diabetes is present during pregnancy.

While its a novelty and a conversation piece it's not healthy to be born in the image of an elephant.  Big babies are hard to deliver and even get "stuck" sometimes, there is trauma to the mom with many of those births and in pregnancy. Also being a fat baby can delay the baby's crawling and walking, also essential parts of a baby's physical and mental development could be slowed. So, contrary to those old sayings that a fat baby is a healthy baby it probably is the opposite in many big baby births. 

I was a bigger than normal baby, though not out of the range of normal. However, one part of me might have been huge.... my mom always said "You've got a big mouth".