Big Babies are Beautiful
My gorgeous daughter, Diva G, my second child, weighed 9lb 5oz when she was born 10 days after her due date. She arrived healthy and that was all that mattered. Although that’s not what people commented on, they commented on her size, almost without exception. I didn’t like it then but in the newborn fog of hormones I rolled with it.
Today I’ve seen tweeted the story of a baby girl born weighing 14lb 4oz “possibly Britains heaviest baby girl” well won’t she just love that article in her memory box? I then observed a “congratulatory” Facebook status about a new arrival declaring the newborn as “weighing a WHOPPING 8lb 13oz”.
Two and a bit years on from Diva G’s birth and I realise just how hurt and angry comments like these about baby weight made, and still do, make me. As a mother to a baby of above average weight they are hurtful. Inside they upset me and yes I cried. It feels like you’re under attack, people having a dig at your precious newborn baby and that’s not right. As a population are we condemning people to a life of dieting, calorie counting and angst? The newborns of today are still being charted on out of date growth charts created in the 1950′s and managed by the incompetent health visitors of the UK? The majority of babies by their second birthday have settled around the average mark anyway and as long as they are healthy and thriving a newborn babies weight really is of no commentary consequence. Certainly no business of anyones other than the baby’s parents.
A healthy newborn baby is all that matters. Newborn babies are tiny and helpless. No one would dream of commenting on the sex of a newborn or the colour of its skin, sexism and racism in the maternity arena remain as unacceptable as they are in the rest of society. But sizeism, that it appears is an open playing field. Newborn babies are beautiful, precious, gorgeous, cute, delightful, yummy, scrummy and delicious. They should never be referred to as massive, whopping, huge, giant, über, chunky, super-sized, “packing some ounces”, “like a 3 month old” – because they’re not.
I think it can be incredibly hurtful to say such things. They hurt my feelings. They really upset me at the time and when I stop to think about it they still do. I think such things are really very insensitive things to say. What say you?
Category: Parenting | Tags: baby weight, Big baby arrival weight, heaviest baby, newborns, what not to say, whopping baby 23 comments »
February 20th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
I do agree with your article. At the end of the day having what is considered a large baby and concentrating on that fact rather than how healthy, adorable or the babies likeness to its parent.
Having had a ‘whopper’ of a baby the third time around (10lb 10oz) and then leaving hospital with what seemed like a 3 month old baby, its sad when you hear people who ignore all the other great stuff about my newborn baby. All people wanted to comment on was how big she was, I went along with it for a time but…sigh….it wore thin quite quickly but I soon learnt not to worry about it and get on with enjoying my bundle of joy.
Small people and small minds….
February 20th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
I agree completely. My first child was 9lb 11 1/2 oz, ten days after his due date. My second was 8lb 11oz, one day after her due date. I had gestational diabetes, although it was missed the first time round.
Six years on, my son is hovering around the 50th percentile – sometimes under, sometimes over.
My daughter, now 14 months old, was just under the 50th percentile when I last had her weighed, around 4 months ago.
February 20th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
I can honestly say I’ve never thought about it like that. I admit I have commented on the size of a baby, but never with the intention of offending. I’m actually quite mortified that someone might be upset by me saying something about a baby’s size. Maybe bringing it to people’s attention like this is a good thing to make people aware of how they might be making parents feel xx
February 20th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
I had 3 big babies, 10lb14oz for my first, 10lb13oz for my second and third. People always made comments about the size, but I never got offended. It was never said in a derogatory way to me, just amazement I think….maybe I was oblivious but I genuinely don’t think someone would intentionally be nasty. I was actually quite proud I baked my babies so well they got to that size! hehe!
February 20th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Guilty as charged! My niece gave birth on friday to a beautiful boy who I called a whopper at 8lbs 13oz! This was really meant as a compliment so I wholeheartedly apologise if anyone has been offended. I am delighted he weighs what he weighs. It just seems that the majority of births I hear about these days are very small weight babies and I worry for them. So, please forgive me – and let me share in the delight that these babies that Claire is talking about are wonderfully healthy and carry the added bonus of not having to worry about their baby being underweight. Great post, Claire, from Janet – nearly 9lbs born!
February 20th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
My dd was an average 8lb 3 baby and I had no comments about her size. My son came at dead on 10lb and skipped new born clothes completely.
I was actually pretty proud of the attention he got at the hospital and elsewhere. With him its his height and not chubbiness so I am laidback about it. The first thing people comment when they meet him is “gosh he’s tall are you sure he’s only 5″.
February 20th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
I’m so sorry you got hurt like that.
I must be more thick skinned because when my daughter was born and they popped her on my back (I was kneeling in a pool), it was me who said ‘what the f*** is that’ because she was do heavy in comparison to my son. I loved it – said she was ‘fully cooked’ and had missed the ‘alien stage’ when they are all wrinkled & funny looking for a few weeks.
Maybe it was easier having had both a little one and a large one? Thank god she wasn’t first, that’s all I can say – ouch! Lol.
Big hugs to you lovely – all babies are beautiful.
February 20th, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Yes I agree but I really think people say it because society/ people have been programmed to have that automated response – it’s a standard line with very little meaning behind it. But people should definitely think twice before saying such things as it is hurtful. My 9lb 4oz didn’t seem that big to me – 2 weeks over so I wasn’t surprised. Luckily he was that big as he dropped to 7lb 9oz as he didn’t feed properly – but don’t get me started on that one!!
February 20th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
I can see how you’d be upset, weight issues have become such a massive issue and health visitors are such a pain in the ass about them. I’m eternally grateful mine came once and then never showed her face again, but I’ve heard horror stories from friends about baby weigh-in’s reducing them to tears.
I think pre-NHS especially in the 30′s and 40′s the whole ‘whopper’ thing was a massive compliment because you had a big healthy baby, small babies were seen as weaker and more likely to die. My Nan didn’t have a child under 10lbs, the largest weighing in at 13.5lb and apparently she was mortified when I was born and was a mere 7.8lb – a weakling apparently
I don’t think most people are being deliberately mean, most people especially non-parents just don’t really know what to say when you have a baby – you know to them they all look the same! So it’s a thoughtless common phrase they are parroting, but hopefully this will make people thing a bit more x.
February 20th, 2012 at 10:10 pm
I’ve never understood this fascination with baby weight. Ever.
Who defines what is big? Every mum is different so why isn’t it expected that every baby will be too?
People seem quite happy to comment on babies being large/small but they wouldn’t say the same to you, would they? (OK, maybe some would!)
I had a relatively big baby, according to stats but then I’m a relatively big woman. Theoretically, a woman’s body isn’t supposed to let them produce a baby that is too big to deliver (although in modern days I’m not sure health professionals would let you find out whether the baby was too big to be born naturally). My daughter remains in the 94th percentile height and weight wise but who cares? The only two differences it seems to make to me is that she is doomed to a life where she struggles to find clothes long enough (same as me) and that when I lift someone else’s child into my arms it always takes me by surprise how light they are and I have been known to topple over!!!
February 21st, 2012 at 12:56 am
Sorry to hear you were uoset by peoples comments. However I have to agree with couple of posts above on a number of levels. I have had 2 average sized babies and one premature very small but thankfully healthy baby. I believe most people would only comment on the size of baby (big) in a more complimentary way… Bouncing healthy and to quote “well cooked”.
My belief has always been people’s comments about’ big babies’ only to be positive not negative. Quite the contrary. I think you should have felt proud you had nurtured your baby well!
When you have had a small baby, early, your main preoccupation is windeing what you may have done better, how you could have prevented premature labour …. And weight gain and ‘plumping’ them up.
I can’t believe people would be referring to a baby being ‘big’ a ‘whopper’ etc etc as negative… I don’t think it has the same connotation as ‘fat or thin’
I think we have to be careful not to automatically extrapolate negative adult labelling towards innocent ‘baby language’
February 21st, 2012 at 8:14 am
My first born, a daughter, was 9lb 14 1/2oz at birth. Unfortunately because of this she was a shoulder dystocia leading to Erb’s Palsy, meaning a life of limited movement to her RT arm. However, regarding this issue, I was simply handed a leaflet for a ‘support group’. Of more interest to the nurses and midwives was the ‘whopper’ who barely fitted in her hospital crib. I had nurses coming from other wards to look at the ‘giant baby’. She was an object of fascination and myself, who was extremely poorly, after losing 4pints of blood during delivery and suffering a 3rd degree tear, had a barrage of strangers coming into my room to see the ‘baby the size of a 3 month old’. The fact that she had been left disabled was never mentioned. At the time I was too ill to think about it, but looking back….how truly horrendous. My second child, a son, was 9lb 2oz, after the proper management of gestational diabetes, which was undiagnosed first time round. As he was smaller, he was classed as me having ‘more of a baby’. I am currently expecting my 3rd. Maybe this one will be a mid 8 pounder….I may finally be seen as having a real, newborn baby, instead of a giant….we will see in September.
February 21st, 2012 at 9:33 am
Emma, my 4yo is over the 100th percentile for both weight and height and she was 9lb 9oz. I forever feel like I’m being judged for the fact she’s in aged 7 clothes due to her height and her tummy. The HV’s I’ve encountered have made me feel like an utter failure. I’m aware she needs to lose a few pounds but she is in proportion generally. She didn’t walk till she was nearly 2 (put down to her height) which has meant that the baby podge has been harder to shift. We watch what she eats whilst trying not to make it an issue but every where you turn there are numerous articles about children being overweight which is tantamount to child abuse in the general media. I’ve taken her to the gp and he just said yes she’s very tall but in proportion, stop worrying. I’ve posted on various baby forums to compare what she eats day to day with other children and whilst I got some great tips there were lots of others more than willing to exclaim their horror. Granted there will be some parents who don’t give a shit what their kids eat and fill them full of junk food, I just wish various columnists and the media in general would realise that we can’t all be tarred with the same brush even if our child is big for their age. Rant over.
February 21st, 2012 at 11:18 am
I had 2 ‘big’ baby girls (9lbs 1oz and 9lbs 12oz) and I was incredible proud of their size. Big healthy babies! Big babies = big tummies = big feeds = big sleeps was my thinking. It never occurred to me to think anything negative of their weight (post natal clearly!!!!!!). Maybe if we can except size for what it is and shift the focus onto health and activity then my girls won’t mind if they are ‘big’ or ‘small’ in later life as long as they are healthy and confident in their ability to and their knowledge of living a healthy lifestyle. I consider myself 1000% blessed that my biggest potential worry was that someone called Eliza a chunk monkey. I love reading blogs that highlight an angle of a topic I’d never considered before!!
February 21st, 2012 at 11:37 am
Awwww I totally get this.
Miss E was 9lb 7oz at 15 days over (plus with the added help of steroids at 32 weeks when I had a bleed and they thought she was on her way). I always felt the need to add the bit about the steroids as a way of explaining her size away which is just crap really.
What makes me even sadder is that after a life of my own weight issues it totally messed with my head and I too got upset with peoples’ comments on her size. When she was 1 we bumped into an old friend of my mum’s who exclaimed, “Oh she’s quite normal now. When she was born she was just sort of a blob wasn’t she?” Omg I was so angry but I still didn’t say anything.
We are obsessed with size. It makes me so sad and cross. Miss E was a gorgeous baby with wrinkles and chub and extra rolls. She walked at 10 months, laughed all the time and is the coolest kid ever. I just wish now I’d had the guts to tell people to sod off, or at least to not be so rude when they commented on her ‘hugeness’. Grrrrrr
February 21st, 2012 at 11:41 am
My son was born 2 weeks early at 7lb 2oz, so pretty average I think. But quickly he went up on the percentile charts to 98th/99th percentile and eventually above that. My Health Visitor said we needed to have a discussion about his weight and putting him on a diet. He was purely breast fed unto 4 months so at this point I just stopped listening to them and have always found them completely useless on anything ever since.
I had comments all the time about his weight and it was upsetting. A health visitor also insinuated that I was feeding him pasties and doughnuts whilst walking around town.
At 11 months he was 2 stone but he only weighs about 2stone 3oz at 25 months so it evens out.
Sam x
February 21st, 2012 at 11:50 am
I agree – Bigger started out small (under the 25th centile) but rapidly grew to the 98th – presumably because I’m small and Mr Muddling is larger
She was breastfed and healthy but the number of comments I got about how fat / big / enormous she was were quite shocking – the child was perfect
Hate how our society is still obsessed with weight = perfection rather than more important things
February 21st, 2012 at 4:20 pm
All babies are beautiful, no matter their size. I think it is wrong to comment either way. I stopped getting Mini weighted as he was heavy and they kept commenting, well he was just on milk as he should be!
February 21st, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Having never given birth, baby weight means little to me as I’ve never really had experience of new borns. I didn’t think birth weight made any difference as they got older.
I might have been tempted to say a 10lb baby was huge in comparison to what I have always thought was average at around 6 – 7 lbs. I haven’t done it, but I could see the potential that I could have, but now after reading this, I know that some people might be hurt by it, so I won’t do it.
You might just have saved someone else from potential hurt. xx
February 21st, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Both my girls were born 9lb2, both a week after they’re due date.
Eldest never fitted in new born as she was so long and is now so tall (and 8 on Thursday!)
Youngest did fit into new born (briefly)but she was shorter and is the stockier of the two.
Never had anyone say oh big baby (but I think I may have killed them). To be what was worse was having to have a scan late on with youngest as I was measuring big and there may be twins in there. Could they not see that eldest was also big!
Both mine also never lost any weight so just carried on growing!
To be honest when I now hold (what to me is a little baby (anything under 9lb 2!) I feel really scared! Not used to it!
I say to the nasty people who say these things, and how big were you at birth because I bet you anything some may have been big babies!
BNM
February 21st, 2012 at 10:34 pm
My first baby weighed 9lb 9 oz when he was born two weeks overdo, my third baby was just 6lb 13 oz when he was born 3 weeks early. Last week at weigh in he had gone from 9th percentile to 75th percentile. He is perfectly normal, healthy and sleeping through (very important for me), however the health visitor eluded to “obese babies”! Quite frankly I could have floored her, I mean, what am I suppose to do – not feed him. A happy baby should be all that’s important.
February 21st, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Sorry to read that you got rude comments about the size of Diva D, it appears that babies are becoming bigger…and in my opinion a lot of it is because we know what w e should and shouldn’t be doing in preganancy. Hopefully what is considered the ‘norm’ will change to make allowances for this. But…everyone is different and so are babies and as long as the baby is healthy then people have no right to make any other remarks. My last three babies were 10lb..and all tiny now. Xx
March 4th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Well said Claire – comments are hurtful, and can cause all manner of problems for mother, father, baby, child, adult – the whole family will be affected in some way (boy, doesnt our family know it). While the contributor may have said it in jest – it’s not bloody funny to the recipient, & those close to them, when it’s said!!!
“oh…..isn’t he/she a Bonny thing” …. Bonny!!!! Bonny???? Wtf…..
I had it from the other side when #boy9 was born. I was paranoid & VERY scared when bubba came into the world. He was 6pm 8oz – which is ??? Average?? Well, it would be if he gained the weight in line with the ‘red book guidelines’ – he didn’t
You know that feeling when you’re waiting to be weighed at WWatchers / slimming club, making sure you have wee’d out all that fluid you’ve taken on board throughout the day, wear your lightest clothes etc….. Well, I was the opposite with bubba!!! I prayed that he had gained weight – fed him as much as poss every day – but the looks and comments I got from the health visitor when I laid him on those scales – well, it was heartbreaking for me. I felt a failure (as I was painstakingly trying to breastfeed (not a natural experience for me & bubba – damn hard work).
If remember phoning hubby one nit whilst he was out at a sports meeting, crying uncontrollably because Id just weighed bubba as best as I could and it appears that he’d lost weight. He hadn’t at all, he hadn’t gained any either.
He was 0.4 percentile for about his first 12 months. But he was healthy!!! I KNOW he was. He was mine, I should know eh??!! So why did these professionals make me feel so inadequate??
To look at him now – he’s a normal size – he’ll never be tall (unfortunately he inherited that from us). But he’s perfect IMHO
and I ill love and care for him whatever 
I feel good now – getting that off my chest!!!! Thanks Claire for letting me vent this
To look at him now