Mother of Nearly 14-Pound Baby Said No to Drugs to Avoid C-Section
The Iowa mother who gave birth to a nearly 14-pound baby with no surgery or medication says she chose to deliver naturally rather than undergo a C-section.
"We just wanted to avoid any unnecessary procedures," Kendall Stewardson said today on "Good Morning America." "We decided to fight for that [a natural delivery] because we wanted to try to lower my chances of getting a C-section."
When Stewardson and her husband, Joshua, made that pledge ahead of the birth of their second son, little did they know he would break a record.
Asher Stewardson was born last Thursday at Mercy Medical Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa, weighing 13 pounds, 13 ounces, making him the biggest naturally born baby the hospital had ever recorded.
Mercy officials say only a tenth of 1 percent of all newborns weigh more than 11 pounds at birth.
Stewardson delivered Asher after six hours of labor but just six minutes of pushing, all without the aid of an epidural or any other drug.
"We were just really blessed that God enabled my body to be able to do this well," Stewardson said on "GMA," alongside Joshua, Asher and the couple's other son, Judah.
"It went really fast," she said. "Six hours is something no one can complain about."
When Judah was born 15 months ago, he weighed in at more than 12 pounds, and was also delivered naturally.
"We had decided to research all of our options before we had Judah just to see what would happen to me," Stewardson said. "We started to research doing it naturally. There are a lot of options for women out there, but this seemed like the best thing for me and Judah, and then Asher."
Kendall credited her ability to deliver such big babies with so little help to her husband, the "best labor coach in the world."
Joshua himself, however, admitted he wasn't always up to the task.
"I remember I did tell her to just look in my eyes, to relax, during the contractions, with Judah," he said. "And she looked in my eyes and I started bawling."
"I said, 'Don't look in my eyes anymore, look away, look away,'" he recalled.
While Asher has continued to gain even more weight in the week since his nearly 14-pound birth, his parents said, his mother has been able to quickly drop her pregnancy pounds.
"Apparently when your babies are so big, you don't have any [weight]," Stewardson said on "GMA." "You don't get to keep it."
