Mega-babies lead to rise in caesareans - Irish women too small "down there"

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As Ms. Guisewite would say “Ack!”

Mega-babies lead to rise in caesareans

IT IS not just Irish adults who are piling on the pounds. Newborns are tipping the scales more than ever before, a new study has found.
Doctors at the Rotunda maternity hospital in Dublin have discovered that baby girls have gained 1lb 3oz in the past 50 years, with baby boys gaining 14½ oz.

The increase in birth weights has generally been welcomed by doctors, who believe bigger babies are a sign of healthier mothers who eat well and smoke less. But they do cause more problems for mothers during labour and are fuelling the rate of caesarean sections, which have trebled in the past two decades.

Heavier babies, especially those weighing more than 9lb 15oz who are dubbed “mega-babies”, are more likely to suffer injuries during birth such as nerve damage and bone fractures. They can also make labour more difficult to manage and injure the mother, because the female pelvis is not evolving at the same rate.

“When increased birth weights are accompanied by a rise in caesarean sections, then we have a difficulty,” said Geraldine Connolly, a consultant obstetrician at the Rotunda, who led the study of birth weights for first-time mothers between 1900 and 2000.

“There is growing concern as bigger babies make delivery more difficult, and these are just average figures. In the 1960s, we were dealing with babies that were smaller. Perhaps during labour we should bail out rather than persist with a natural birth because, in some cases, the babies’ heads are just too big for the woman’s pelvis.”

In 1950, the average Irish baby weighed a slender 6lb 13oz, but by the turn of the millennium they tipped the scales at almost 7lb 10oz.

Irish babies are now estimated to weigh a bag of sugar heavier than than their Indian counterparts, which on average weigh in at less than 6lb. In Sweden the average is 8lb, and 13lb and 14lb babies are much more common.