13-Pound Baby Born to Pennsylvania Couple
A baby girl weighing 13 pounds 12 ounces was born this week in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania by Cesarean section, The Huffington Post is reporting. Addyson Gayle Cessna set a record at the hospital where she was born, and she joins a growing number of babies who are unusually large, including a boy born last March in England weighing more than 15 pounds. Experts warn, as The Huffington Post reports, that the phenomenon is more a concern than an amusing novelty:
While these big babies may be cute, just like their adult counterparts, notable weights often signal more serious health problems.
Mary Helen Black, a biostatistician with Kaiser Permanente Southern California's department of research and evaluation explained to HuffPost in an interview last year, "There may be a general perception that, 'Oh, the baby's big, but so what?' That's a misperception." She cautioned that babies who are born too large are at an increased risk "for very serious consequences both during delivery, for the mother and the infant, as well as later in life -- for the infant."
Known as "fetal macrosomia," when a baby is born weighing more than 8 pounds, 13 ounces, this condition can be attributed to maternal obesity and diabetes, among other factors.
