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healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:10 pm
by shell-belle
Our neighbor who is a labor & delivery nurse came for a vegan dinner at our home last night. She was saying if an obese woman gives birth to a baby 10 pounds or more then that baby will be born with extra fat cells. She also said that newborn babies should not weigh over 7.5 pounds. Is this true? I never had any babies but I had a friend who had a 10 pound baby boy 21 years ago and he has been fat or obese all his life. Of course I know he ate the wrong foods and too much of them - but was he doomed to be fat by his birth weight? I googled healthy birth weight and got info that says 6-8 pounds is best and other info saying 6-9 pounds is fine. I know we have some nurses on these boards and some people better informed about this subject than I am. Anyone care to comment?

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:18 pm
by Adrienne
Dr McD has said in various places in this site that babies should be 5-8 pounds. And yes it is true that overweight women are more likely to give birth to bigger babies, as are women who gain excessive amounts of weight during pregnancy and/or who eat high fat diets while pregnant. Epigenetic changes occur in the womb and babies can be predisposed to obesity later in life, regardless of how they eat.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:28 pm
by Adrienne
And just to add, other factors that can contribute to bigger babies include maternal intake of fish oil (which can prolong gestation and lead to bigger babies) and intake of dairy, particularly low-fat dairy (due to increase in IGF-1).

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 1:02 pm
by Debbie
I've had 3 babies. My first weighed 9lbs 3 ounces, I gained over 60 lbs. She was 21 inches long.

My second was 8lbs 2 ounces, and was 20 inches long. I gained 10lbs.

My third was 9lbs 4 ounces, 21 inches long and I gained 40 lbs.

First pregnancy was SAD diet, last two Mcdougall. My blood sugars were perfect for the last two and eh for the first.

Ironically enough, my middle girl who was my smallest at birth, has the most pudge and my last who was my biggest is my leanest!!

I believe the only time in our lives we lay down new fat cells is infancy and teenaged years. While of course they lay down new fat cells in utero, unless the women is diabetic and obese does it cause the issues you mention.

And I should add, while my middle girl is pudgier than the other two, she is in no way fat and I believe eating this way will keep her from being obese as an adult too. Just as I believe eating this way would keep a lot of kids no matter their birthweight from getting obese in later years.

As a side note, my hubby is the last of three kids and was his moms largest at over 1.5 heavier, and is by far leaner than his siblings even with his less than ideal diet ;-)

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:17 am
by ETeSelle
I was 8.5 lbs and my brother was 10.3 lbs (!!!) in 1962 and 1964. My parents are not overweight and never have been; my brother is not overweight and never has been. I was overweight in my 30s and again in my 40s but otherwise was not.

Sounds like hooey to me UNLESS the mother is obese. Perhaps that makes a difference.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:24 pm
by eaufraiche703
and just to add to the discussion...

i followed a see food diet for three pregnancies - saw it; ate it. ate anything, and often! i ate well, but way too much!!!!

gained 40-50 lbs w/ each kid. i'm 5'1, and weighed 5#5oz. at birth. generally weigh in the average weight range (heavy for mcdougaller, tho) have 5 siblings, and the heaviest weighed 7#2 ounces. most were 6 pounders - my parents were on the short side.

daughter 1 weighed 7#2 and is a normal sized adult - short, but slim and fit

son weighed 5#5, and gained a pound a week right after birth for one month. he's small for an adult male - around 5'7, but trim, muscular body

daughter 2 was born 1 month early and weighed 2#14 ounces. she's a short but slim/fit adult woman

my kids are brilliant adults (in other words, i didn't screw up their brains w/ all those fat cells during preg)

i'd wager that mom's excessive caloric consumption during preg isn't the biggest predictor of ultimate human fitness.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:23 pm
by Kiki
I've always heard that it does in large part because maternal diabetes can cause huge increases in birthweight. Babies can be born 2 - 4 times normal birthweight:

http://www.worldamazingrecords.com/2009 ... esian.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/16-pound-b ... zAnN-TYExQ

I was a 10 lb baby born to a non-diabetic mom who has always maintained a low BMI. But, my family is also at the tall end of the statistics. I think the shortest woman in my family was 5'6". It's a difference that isn't accounted for.

There is actually some research into this. It might be worth looking up, if you are interested:

Fifteen of the 19 studies (79%), ranging in size from 1028 to 92,940 subjects, found a positive association between birth weight and later BMI. -Journal of Family Practice

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:40 pm
by ETeSelle
Oh, and I was 8.5# and my bro 10.3# with my mom gaining almost NO WEIGHT during pregnancy. She was (and still is to some extent) anorexic. So there goes THAT theory, LOL!

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:53 pm
by Kiki
There goes what theory?

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 8:49 am
by ETeSelle
Kiki wrote:There goes what theory?

That high birthweight babies come from fat women. That heavy babies = fat babies.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 12:09 pm
by Kiki
You mean that heavy babies grow into fat adults?

One exception doesn't disprove the general trend noticed in studies of thousand and tens of thousands of pregnancies.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 2:26 pm
by ETeSelle
I suppose not. ;)

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:07 pm
by eaufraiche703
wait a sec.... where was the data about high birthweight babies coming from fat mommies....

read the studies about kids in 85 and greater % maintaining that place on the continuum.... but missed the data about fat women...

but really busy, so might have just missed your link....

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:22 pm
by Kiki
I think there is an assumption that diabetes usually means excess weight. The mother's weight does seem to be a factor. From the previous link:

A prospective cohort study of 1993 white LGA infants found a greater propensity to become obese in adolescence, but only if their mothers or fathers were also obese (RR=5.7).7 Children with lean parents did not have an increased risk of being over-weight in adolescence.

Re: healthy birth weight for baby

PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:03 pm
by Adrienne
Here are some of Dr McD's comments on the subject:

Many explanations, including women’s laziness and doctors’ greed, have been proposed for the high rates of Cesarean sections seen these days. However, one answer is obvious: In addition to the expanding epi-demic of obesity among adults caused by the rich Western diet, this same food causes babies to grow too large to fit through their mothers’ birth canals. The larger the mother, the larger the baby, and the high-er the risk of emergency Cesarean birth and injury to mother and infant.3 Full-term infants weighing eight to twelve pounds cannot easily fit through their mothers’ birth canals, which are designed for five- to seven-pound babies.

Fish-eating prolongs gestation, increasing birth weight, which results in an increase in birth injuries and Cesarean section births.
27-31

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2011nl/ ... gnancy.pdf

The female birth canal was designed to allow a baby weighing 5 to 8 pounds to fit through--the size they tend to grow when mothers eat a healthy, plant-based diet. With unrestricted weight gains for the mothers, babies these days are weighing in at 10 to 12 pounds--a size often too big to comfortably fit through the mother's pelvis. Big babies are harder to deliver and as a result, injury and death more likely. Harm to the mother and the possibility of cesarean section birth is increased by about 50% (Obstet Gynecol 79:664, 1992).
http://www.drmcdougall.com/newsletter/m ... ril97.html

Also as I stated earlier maternal dairy protein intake leads to bigger babies, regardless of the mother's weight:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21697074