Modern Americans are Having Bigger Babies
Picture this: your friend is getting ready to have a baby. You help her pack everything up and head to the hospital. You get a room and the delivery goes smoothly. The doctor hands her their child and says she now has a healthy 14-pound baby--wait, 14 POUNDS?
This was the reality for one Texas woman and has become a trend according to a 2013 report from the medical journal, The Lancet. The report says that there has been a 15 to 25 percent increase in babies weighing 8 pounds and 13 ounces or more in the past two to three decades in developed countries.
The average birth weight of a newborn child is between 5.5 pounds and 8.8 pounds according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
While birth weights vary from woman to woman, a higher birth weight increases the chance of complications with mom and baby.