Althouse: The problem of big babies.

August 16, 2013

The problem of big babies.

Literal big babies.

It's a serious medical issue.

Figurative big babies are another matter. A cultural issue.

14 comments:

MathMom said...: Marion Mitchell Morrison weighed 13 lbs at birth. He was famous locally even before he became famous worldwide as John Wayne.; 8/16/13, 12:55 PM
traditionalguy said...: Another war on women . The attack of the Giant Foetus.; 8/16/13, 12:59 PM
MadisonMan said...: Both my kids were bigger than 10 pounds, and no gestational diabetes, either.

Not sure how this is a problem. The linked-to article chock full of "could"s and maybes. I am unpersuaded that this is a (cough) big issue. It reads more like a pathetic attempt to garner webhits from worried parents-to-be.; 8/16/13, 1:11 PM
sonicfrog said...: I blame either Bush, or Global Warming! :-); 8/16/13, 1:48 PM
Carl said...: I'm having a hard time figuring out how this is the fault of men, Republicans, the media portrayal of women, the lack of government single-payer health care, capitalism in general, or insufficient Federal tax revenue.

I mean, I know it is, I'm just having a hard time connecting the dots. Help!; 8/16/13, 2:20 PM
Scott M said...: I treated my father-in-law to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's last night. As we were seated, I noticed a family already eating dinner across the open-plan restaurant and couldn't quite decide why a bell had gone off.

After watching them for a few ticks, it dawned on me. There were five adults. A mom, dad, and three others that looked enough alike to assume sibs or at least cousins. Or maybe it's just that all morbidly obese people look the same.

Five very overweight people, sitting at the same table, scarfing down meals...and not talking to each other much, mind you, instead all gazing into their smartphones or tablets.

At the far end of the table, eating quietly, was a little girl who couldn't have been more than four years old. She was already showing signs of "fluffiness".

I've not seen such a sad thing in quite a while.; 8/16/13, 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh yes, I feel their pain. My third daughter was a whopping 10 lbs. 3oz. 22.5 inches long. My other children were not small babies either, weighing in at over 8lbs. each. I didn't do anything differently during the pregnancy of my 10 pounder, can't really explain her high birth weight. I can attest to the beating my bladder got during the last two weeks. I also sustained an inferior wall infarct due to the Vena Cava being compressed. Luckily I was young and the heart damage wasn't severe, but the chest pain during labor was bad news. Luckily the labor was only a few hours.

I'm glad to report hat by the time she was a year old all that extra baby fat was gone and she grew up to be a tall slender child and adult.; 8/16/13, 3:29 PM
Unknown said...: well, now that 'literally' means 'figuratively', we'll need a new word...

Really Google 'define literally', see def #2. Or see Merriam-Wesbter or Cambridge dictionaries, which have also added the informal, non-literal definition.; 8/16/13, 3:39 PM
Carol said...: My dad weighed 13 lbs. Heard about that whopper all my life. He turned out okay, tall and thin until his later years.; 8/16/13, 7:53 PM
Mountain Maven said...: Not to worry, Obamacare will fix this too.; 8/16/13, 11:01 PM
AmPowerBlog said...: "The linked-to article chock full of "could"s and maybes."

Yeah, and what, they had a sample size of three babies that large? I'll worry when this isn't in the freak occurrence stage.; 8/16/13, 11:09 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "Slim down your fetal figure with new Prenatal Xtreme De-Pudge."

"Fit back into your size newborns in no time!"

Or maybe we could have a government program where the not yet born would be encouraged to participate in fitness programs. There could be certificates, "Congratulations on Your Admission into the President's Prenatal Fitness Club."; 8/16/13, 11:26 PM
jaed said...: Doctors are already on the case, even in advance of Obamacare. "Suspected large baby", one of the creepiest phrases in all obstetrics, has been a thing for years now.

Doctors deal with it by inducing early and doing caesareans right, left, and sideways - to the point where many medical personnel haven't seen many births of fullterm babies because most babies aren't permitted to go to full term.

Mostly, this doesn't cause permanent harm: most babies can deal with being a couple three weeks premature, and preemie care has gotten extremely good. The attitude is that if the baby is too premature, you can just pop them in neonatal ICU for a couple of weeks and all is well.

The problems with this approach are left as an exercise to the reader, but some of them, like the extreme caesarean rate, are alluded to in the article as though they were a good thing.

>I've not seen such a sad thing in quite a while.

Such a sad thing as fat people actually eating a meal, just as though they were normal and had a right to be in public? In a restaurant? A family that resemble each other physically? I envy you your sheltered life in that case.

(I'll grant you that the focus on gadgets instead of conversation is a pity, but that's hardly particular to this family or to people who look like them.); 8/17/13, 3:27 AM
Deirdre Mundy said...: I wonder if epigentics places a role here. Some studies indicate that if a woman is pregnant during a famine, her daughter and grandaughter will have fatter babies and be heavier--- because certain genes get expressed when a child is gestated during a food shortage.

While there wasn't a famine in the 40s and 50s, our grandmothers were told not to gain weight so they'd have small babies. Docs tried to make sure baby size topped out around 6,7, pounds (even though 8 pounders are actually healthier and easier to deliver if the mom is conscious instead of gassed.) Maybe the mega-babies are a direct result of the attempt to produce mini-babies.....

In which case, the attempts to stop the mega-children will lead to more mega-children......

If my kids are term, they come in at 8.5 pounds. (less if early, more if late.) BUT my OBs have told me that in the absence of GD, birthweight is best predicted by the birthweights of parents and siblings...; 8/17/13, 5:39 AM