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Big baby a surprise
Filed under: Your Pregnancy, Media
A woman in Scotland recently gave birth (via Cesarean, which fills me with great relief) to a 12 pound 13 ounce baby. The Mom's bump was reportedly very large prior to the birth, but there was no indication that the baby would be quite this big.The article made me wonder. Nolan was 9 pounds, 14 ounces when he was born and my highly experienced OB had told me days before his birth that he was going to be "an average sized baby". Regardless, I firmly believed that my baby was going to be enormous, partly because his dad and I are very tall people, and partly because I wanted to mentally prepare myself for the agony of giving birth to a toddler-sized babe.
In the end, the agony was not to be as I gave birth via c-section. I am grateful that Nolan was exquisite and perfect and that I did not give birth to a 22 pound 8 ounce baby (the biggest baby ever to survive, bless his Mother's dear heart)
Was your baby the size you expected him or her to be?










ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-22-2006 @ 4:06PM
Corin's Momma said...My son was estimated at about 9 lbs before birth. I was induced 10 days early and ended up with a 10 lb. 4 oz. mass of baby via c-section after pushing for 4 hours. It scares me to think how big he would have been had I lasted until my due date or beyond!
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5-22-2006 @ 4:12PM
Liz said...My mom was 90 pounds when she got pregnant with my older brother, and he was three weeks early when he was delivered, and he was 9lbs 12oz, vaginally. I was 9lbs 3oz. and my older sister was the smallest of us, 7lbs I believe. She was smaller than what they expected, because of having my brother first, and I was pretty much what they expected, a chubby baby from the start.
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5-22-2006 @ 4:22PM
kate said...We were surprised by a 9lb 14oz baby boy. We expected average size - maybe 8lbs tops. I only gained 30lbs...
He was 10 days late, and even then was not fully "ready" as he was induced with gel and never progressed/dropped. After 24 hours of natural labor, and then the pit. I was devastaded by having to move along to csection. Hoping to do vbac next time, and maybe hbac - but wondering if I will have another large baby. I love to hear stories of big babies birthed naturally - because I believe that it can be done and I need the inspiration!
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5-22-2006 @ 4:37PM
Amy said...I gave birth via a scheduled c-section (after having an ultrasound 3 days before my due date that showed the circumference of his head to be 15 in. and from ear to ear over 10 cm) to a 10 lb. 11 oz. boy. Everyone (and I mean everyone including random strangers) said I looked like I was giving birth to twins. I gained 60 lbs. with a belly that grew straight out! I retained so much water my last trimester...ugh.
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5-22-2006 @ 4:56PM
Sharon said...I had two big babies naturally!
My oldest daughter was 8 lb. 14 oz. I didn't know what her sex was until she was born, but had a feeling she might be a boy because I could tell she was going to be big! Started out with an epidural, but she was in o.p. position (sunny side up), so I ended up pushing at the end for over four hours with no epidural. They waited until the last 15 minutes or so to give me an episiotomy (sp?). Once they did that she came out rather quickly.
My second, who I knew was going to be a girl, weighed exactly 10 lb. They had estimated her weight to be about 8 lb. My entire labor was four hours, with about 10 minutes of pushing - piece of cake compared to my first!
I weighed almost 10 lb. at birth so big babies definitely run on my side of the family, although my sisters had smaller babies at birth than I did.
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5-22-2006 @ 6:19PM
karrie said...My husband and I are big, tall people. (He's 6ft6, I;m 6ft. Both very broad linebacker types..lol) Anyway I gained around 100 pounds while pregnant, and my midwife kept telling me that I could give birth to a 13-14 pound baby. My son shares his parents extra-large bone structure, so felt and looked very big in utero.
He was 9 lbs 10.5 ounces. Born via c-section after 6 hours of pushing and a very long labor. I have no idea why my midwife kept insisting I could birth a 14 pound babe vaginally, but I'm kind of relieved, since my not quite 10 pounder did not exactly makie a quick entrance. :)
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5-22-2006 @ 6:35PM
stace said...My 2nd daughter they thought was going to be small, I was having u/s every two days. They were worried about how small she was to be at term under 3 lbs. Understand about 6 different u/s techs and doctor's told us this. She was born over 6 lbs at 39 weeks via c-sec. All my kids have been 6 to 7 lbs.
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5-22-2006 @ 7:02PM
Brenda said...My baby was 8lbs 2.5oz which is waaaay smaller than expected. His head was large though, but aside from scaring the nurse(?) intern(?) everything was fine.
And Kate if you want to hear some inspiring large baby and HBACUBAC stories I invite you to join:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/EmpoweredChildbirth/
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5-22-2006 @ 7:36PM
S said...My first was a 9 pound, 11 ounce girl who was estimated by ultrasound to be in the "lower 8 pound range." She was induced 3 days early because of my pre-eclampsia. I only gained 15 pounds total with her and most of it pre-e related water, so I ended up weighing less immediately after giving birth than I did when I got pregnant.
My second, also a girl, was 9 pounds, 8 ounces and was 2 days early. Also an induction because the doc knew based on my 1st that I grow big babies.
I had both vaginally. 1st was a 24 hour labor and the second was a 15 hour labor. 1.5 hours of pushing with both.
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5-22-2006 @ 9:36PM
Peggy-Sue said...Well, I just had to comment on this one, if only to give Kate some positive "big baby" stories. My first baby was a pretty normal vaginal delivery, except for the fact that he was 10 days late and really, really resisted being induced (many, many gel inductions and finally put on Pitocin) - we did get a big surprise when after 2 hours of pushing out came a 10 pound, 1 ounce baby! Yikes! My midwife told me later that she thought he was going to be a big baby, but didn't tell me because she didn't want to scare me (no kidding!) During my second pregnancy I was (as you can imagine) worried about the baby being big and late. This time I was more than a week late, but went into labour the day I was due to be induced. And despite being reassured from my midwife (a different one this time) that the baby didn't feel big, after pushing for less than 5 minutes, out came a 10 pound, 14 ounce baby! The actual "hard labour" was quite fast and I was back at home less than three hours later. Both experiences were great (especially the second one) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed since I'm now pregnant with number three (my husband keeps saying "we're goin' for 12 pounds!!!")
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5-22-2006 @ 9:46PM
Michele said...I have a neighbor who gave birth (naturally, I might add) to a very healthy 13# baby boy several years ago. He's turned out to be pretty average in size despite his beginnings. She was surely a trooper!
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5-22-2006 @ 10:48PM
Jill said...OUCH!
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5-23-2006 @ 12:33AM
Jenn said...I've just recently been given an 8 lb prediction by my doctor - larger than I'd been anticipating, as I was born in the high 5 lb range...
But I believe my new mantra is: as long as she's not 12lbs!
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5-23-2006 @ 6:31AM
Amy said...I thought for sure my baby would be at least 8/8.5 pounds because all the babies in my family seem to be that big. I was quite surprised to give birth to a 7 lb. daughter one week ago!
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5-23-2006 @ 1:17PM
Jennifer said...We were *very* surprised by our 9lb 13oz boy - I too had been told to expect "average." I'm kinda glad it worked out that way though, because if I'd known in advance I was pushing out almost 10 lbs, I would have been terrified.
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5-23-2006 @ 4:53PM
Katie said...I got induced 2 weeks early due to pre-eclampsia and them thinking the baby was going to be big. After 40 hours of labor and 1 hr of pushing a 8lb 12 oz baby came out vaginally. I thought that was normal because the lady next was in labor for an hour and pushed out a 10 lb baby.
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6-06-2006 @ 8:52PM
Ceci said...At seven months, the ultrasound showed a 5 lb 5 oz baby boy. They say babies put on an ounce a day - OMG, thinks I, he's going to be over 9 pounds! Two days before birth, another u/s was done, and the techs talked about it in code so as not to scare me ("the 5400 gram baby") - but I can divide by eleven, and I knew it was going to be frightening. I wasted an hour thinking about natural birth, but the nurse told me that sometimes you can deliver a big baby's head, but then his shoulders may get stuck and either they would break his little collarbones, or push him back upstream for an emergency section. So I opted for a planned section instead. He was exactly on schedule, 11 1/2 pounds, the largest baby in the hospital all year. No complications for him, but I lost a LOT of blood and they saved my life by going back in for a hysterectomy. PTL, I've got one great son, now ten.
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6-19-2006 @ 11:58AM
Tessa said...I have all of our four children vaginally (and am now preggo with our 5th). Our first was a girl and was estimated to be between 9.5 and 11 lbs the day before I was induced, she was born at a healthy 10lb 9.8oz after about an hour of pushing and getting stuck only to have a nurse come and push on my stomach and down so hard that her shoulders finally came out (hurt like h$ll but was grateful afterwards). Our next two also being girls were a nice downsize to 8lb 6oz and 8lb 8oz. Our son who is now 17 months was 10lbs 9.2oz at birth. I think I have finally realized that I just have big babies and can end my dream of a nice 'newborn' who actually uses newborn diapers for more than a few days if at all.
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7-06-2006 @ 12:06PM
J said...My son was 10lbs 7oz & 23 inches at birth - born on his due date. He was born vaginally after about 7 hours of labor & 1 hour of pushing. He was born with his hand up next to his head - the doc said it was delivering an 11 1/2 pounder. He did get stuck & they tried to reposition his arm (that really hurt). I did have a couple of nurses push on my stomach to help get him out. All in all, it could have been worse & I had an adorable baby. His foot didn't even fit in the box where they stamp the footprint. He was 18 pounds & 27 inches by 2 months! He is still off-the-charts even though my husband and I are average size.
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