Iowa mom Kendall Stewardson is no lightweight—and neither is her newborn son, Asher. Kendall recently gave birth to baby Asher naturally—no surgery, no epidural—after six hours of labor. That’s an admirable feat in and of itself, but making it even more impressive is Asher’s weight at birth—a whopping 13 pounds, 13 ounces! (To put Asher’s weight in perspective, the average newborn weighs in at 7.5 pounds, according to WhatToExpect.com.)
That’s the sort of statistic that is especially hard for mothers to understand after giving birth to an infant whose weight is closer to average. When Alicia heard about baby Asher, “I was stunned,” she says. Her son Jav was born at eight pounds. “[Jav] was vacuumed because my pelvis was too small to fit his head. Which is why I can’t comprehend a fourteen pounder—naturally!”
Anita, gave birth naturally to her daughter, Holly, who was 6 pounds, 6 ounces, and then to her son, Aiden, who was bigger than Holly—8 pounds, 2 ounces. Anita has a hard time imagining what it was like carrying an even bigger baby like Asher. “Towards the end with Aiden, I was like ‘Get out!’” Anita gives Iowa mom Kendall major props. “More power to her—that’s amazing!”
Similarly, the Internet was bursting with reactions to the natural birth of baby Asher, and women had plenty to say on the subject. “I’m sure her vagina hates her,” said @AishiaOffray on Twitter. “Any woman who gives birth to a 14-lb. baby with no epidural needs to either enlist in the military or qualify for the Olympics,” marvelled @xoAlaia. And on Facebook, a woman named Jennifer commented, “I think I express fear on behalf of all pregnant women.”
Baby Asher may be big news, but incredibly enough, he’s not setting any records! Before Asher, there were other infants with Michelin-Man arms, chunky legs, and chubby cheeks to spare, including some born to Latina moms. Some of them were delivered via C-section, but they’ve still got pounds and ounces on baby Asher!
Antonio Vasconcelos, born in Cancun in 2007, earned his nickname (“Super Tonio”) weighed in at an astounding 14 pounds, 5 ounces. Axel Laverne Dolton was given a nickname at birth, too—“Butterball.” The Minnesota boy weighed 15 pounds, 6 ounces—and he was a preemie! Delivered via C-section in 2009, Axel was almost too big to fit in the isolette designated for preemies. But he has nothing on JaMichael Johnson, who was born last summer in the state of Texas—known for big hats, big hair and well, all things big. JaMichael tipped the scales at 16 pounds, 1 ounce. Ademilton, a baby boy born in Brazil in 2005, beats JaMichael’s weight at 16 pounds, 11 ounces. (News reports note that Ademilton was delivered via C-section.) But Ademilton’s was knocked off the scale by Nadia Khalina, a girl born to parents in Siberia in 2007, who clocked in at 17 pounds, 1 ounce! But Italy, the home of pizza, pasta, and gelato, boasts the birth of the world’s largest known healthy baby, Baby Boy Fedele, who clocked in at 22 pounds, 8 ounces in 1955.
While Saturday Night Live has poked fun at the roly-poly baby with a commercial for “Baby Spanx,” there can be a serious side to newborns who weigh more than average. Unlike a bowl of Italian pasta or a Texan’s ten-gallon hat, bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to babies. There’s even a name for infants too big to be born vaginally: macrosomia. And larger-than-average newborns can be the result of gestational diabetes in the mother. Expectant moms with gestational diabetes can give birth to babies whose bodies produce more insulin, which can cause low blood sugar and breathing problems.
But not all big babies are born to mothers with gestational diabetes or other health problems. Sometimes a chubby baby is just that—a big bundle of joy welcomed into the world with arms opened extra wide.
