Babies are getting bigger and pelvises aren't?

[minkajane]

I was watching Maternity Ward Saturday (I know, I know, bad Mandy!) and one of the moms was having trouble pushing out the baby. They were interviewing an OB and he said that babies had gotten a pound or a pound and a half bigger and moms’ pelvises hadn’t gotten any bigger. Yeah, RIGHT! So THAT explains all the extra C-sections!

After the mom had pushed for a while (semi-lithotomy) with little progress, they put up a squat bar, but instead of having her squat, they tied a towel around it for her to hold onto while she continued to push in semi-lithotomy. Eventually, they brought out the forceps. Baby’s heart rate was fine, but their 2-hour time limit was up. The mom questioned the necessity, because she had requested no forceps in her birth plan, but they started the scare tactics and bullied her into it. The baby was born after 2 hours and some-odd minutes by forceps extraction.

Anyway, the whole point of this rant was to question the OB’s statement – I thought babies were getting smaller because of early C/S and inductions? Or is it just that all babies that have the remotest possibility of being over 8 ½ pounds are an automatic C/S?

[Kathryn]

If he could pull the baby out with forceps, she could've birthed the baby just as fine if he had given her the time. Her pelvis didn't get any bigger when he put the forceps in. Fat is squishy and I don't think people realize that. Expect in very rare cases, your body will not grow a baby bigger than it should.

[Quagmire]

I'm puzzled by this too. Isn't the head circumference what makes a baby "big"? The rest of the body pretty much slides out (save any kind of shoulder dystocia).

It's really ridiculous that OBs are saying this sort of thing. People are likely to believe them

[cottonwood]

If he could pull the baby out with forceps, she could've birthed the baby just as fine if he had given her the time. Her pelvis didn't get any bigger when he put the forceps in.

Exactly. That OB was a quack, pure and simple. Pretending that he knows something about the birth process and how women's bodies work, when he really knows nothing about it at all.

[lilsishomemade]

I sure do wish these doctors could be held responsible for saying things like this, especially on tv. That is obviously a statement made without any amount of thought, etc.

[mama3peanuts]

CPD is a crock in the first place, but for the very few (and i mean VERY few) cases where this is legit, its the size of the head that would matter, not the squishy, fleshy, maleable fat. Head circumferences generally stick within a set range, poundage notwithstanding. what BS!

maybe they should "let" these mamas, you know, MOVE a little bit.

[sapphire_chan]

Doesn't using foreceps effectively make the baby's skull an inch or so larger??? Ouchie....

[erin_brycesmom]

Even though 2 hours isn't very long to push and the position she was in was the least helpful...I have been reading that the average size of babies has increased. I don't think it was quite as much as the OB noted. I have heard a lot of theories as to why the increase. From bovine growth hormones to evolution because of c-sections (so many of them, baby has no reason to stay small enough to birth vaginally).

~Erin

[dharmama]

Interesting. This thread caught my eye because one of my friends who had two c-sections (after trying VERY hard for vaginal births both times) is always asking me about baby size and if I've heard anything about it.....which I never have.

She was told by her MW that more c-sections are needed because babies are getting "too big" in utero because our diets are so much better now.

I don't know about our diets (in general "our") being any better but certainly babies are getting bigger compared to previous generations when women starved themselves to stay under the 17 pound weight gain limit.

I notice that the older women at church (70s +) always make the BIGGEST deal about how *huge* I am and how I'm never going to make it to my due date etc. And when I say that DD was 8.8 their eyes bug out of their head. Then they usually tell me about their 4, 5 and 6 pound babies.

Doh...DD is awake.

[sapphire_chan]

Even if babies are *heavier* that shouldn't make any difference in how well they come out. What is it with people and not knowing that fat is squishy? Do they live in the land of plastic surgery or something?

[alexisyael]

Erin, I'm getting the same kinds of comments from people of all generations...

Actually, I think that *some* babies may be getting too big because of all the junk food their mamas eat. That happened to my sister - you eat a half gallon of ice cream every day (plus a lot of other sugar and junk food), and your body may end up growing a baby that's too big to even engage, let alone be birthed. Yeah, fat compresses, but a baby with a huge fat head may not compress enough, KWIM?

When you add to that our bad posture and the prevelence of mal-positioned babies because of our posture/ work/ relaxation habits... and the heavy use of the lithotomy position for pushing (!!!) it adds up...

But mostly I think that Dr was probably an a$$.

[SaveTheWild]

Originally Posted by alexisyael

Actually, I think that *some* babies may be getting too big because of all the junk food their mamas eat. That happened to my sister - you eat a half gallon of ice cream every day (plus a lot of other sugar and junk food), and your body may end up growing a baby that's too big to even engage, let alone be birthed. Yeah, fat compresses, but a baby with a huge fat head may not compress enough, KWIM?

:

fast food and junk food generally have a ton of calories and i think a lot of pregnant moms are getting more calories than their babies need. sometimes "healthy" extra calories just end up becoming fat on the mom, but unhealthy extra calories can probably be over utilized by the baby and end up with a too large baby.

[cottonwood]

Actually, I think that *some* babies may be getting too big because of all the junk food their mamas eat. That happened to my sister - you eat a half gallon of ice cream every day (plus a lot of other sugar and junk food), and your body may end up growing a baby that's too big to even engage, let alone be birthed. Yeah, fat compresses, but a baby with a huge fat head may not compress enough, KWIM?

I am a little bit skeptical about this. I ate a lot of ice cream while pregnant. (Good protein! ) I also ate my share of chocolate and cookies and macaroni & cheese... okay, okay, I wasn't gorging on these things all day long, and I don't usually eat pre-packaged foods (meaning not a lot of the *really* junky stuff like hydrogenated fats and high-fructose corn syrup.) But heavens, I certainly wasn't eating a low-sugar low-calorie diet by any means. (And for the record, I'm "clinically obese" at 5'6" and 200 lbs.)

My largest baby was 8 lb. 2 oz. and my smallest 6 lb. 10 oz.

In contrast, my husband's grandmother who was just a little wisp of a thing with hardly an ounce of fat on her body, had 9-11 lb. babies.

I think it's mostly genetics.

Out of curiosity, how was your sister's birth managed?

[Satori]

I haven't seen anyone point out the fact that while yes babies are getting bigger, so is everyone else! A really good example would be Asians, they generally have a smaller stature when raised on a traditional Asian diet but when they come over here and raise there kids here you end up with kids who are 6 ft tall and parents who are only 5 ft tall. Diet, hormones, what ever, is making these kids much bigger then genetically meant to be so I would "think" that bigger bodies and I don't just mean fat, there bone structure seems to be bigger as well would allow to birth bigger babies. They eat what's now the traditional American diet and get bigger babies and the cycle repeats itself. Make sense?

[alexisyael]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

I think it's mostly genetics.

Out of curiosity, how was your sister's birth managed?

I do agree with this for the most part, but my sister was probably eating double to triple the amount of calories she should have been, all from processed/ junk foods. She has probably the worst diet (in general) of anyone I know, which is saying a lot.

I'm not following a low-calorie/ no sugar diet by any stretch of the imagination (tho I do *try* to stay away from a lot of sugar, but sometimes the pecan tarts at the grocery store call my name, ya know ) nor am I a food purist (I love me some mac and cheese!), but my sister takes the cake (literally) for worst diet. Actually, sometimes I wonder if she's bullemic or anorexic, b/c she goes through phases where she binges and then phases where she doesn't eat anything (she binged throughout the pregnancy then stopped eating after she delivered and she still follows that cycle, 5 years later), which is how she "maintains" her weight... but that's neither here nor there.

She has other issues, too (fused discs in her back, emotional instability, incredible stress, no good support system) and her labor was not managed well at all. All of that combined I think is what led to her c-section, so no, I don't think it was just one thing... But certainly, she had a much bigger baby than anyone else in our family has ever had, and she's the shortest/ most petite boned of all of us. So, I do think her baby was a lot bigger than she might have been.

But yeah, my family does tend towards big babies and large weight gains (hers was just the biggest)... so genetics definitely plays a part!