A friend of mine just had a baby, and as with any other announcement of a birth that I can remember, when she told me she made sure to include the baby’s birth weight. And any time there’s a flyer or e-mail announcing somebody at work had a baby, it always includes the weight. Come to think of it, it has probably become so commonly accepted, that it would seem strange to not announce the baby’s weight, and would probably cause many questions - “So how much does he/she weigh”?
But why? As a single guy with no kids, maybe I’m just not getting something here, or maybe I don’t understand the importance of a baby’s weight. But it seems to me that as long as the weight is within norms (not freakishly large or small), the actual weight does not interest me or provide me with any useful information.
Well, that’s just it. Birth weight correlates roughly with health. Underweight babies are often sickly and/or premature, and blithe congratulations are often tempered with apprehension for such a baby’s survival.
Nametag may be right, and probably historically, weight was a huge factor in baby survival.
On the other hand, I ask because what else can you ask about a newborn? They aren’t doing anything yet, except pooping and peeing, and you can’t ask about that.
Even at 5 months, I’m still asked about Aaron’s birth weight (7 lbs. 11 oz., if anyone cares). Basically, as Nametag said, it’s just a quick and dirty measure of how well a baby is growing. (and, FTR, Aaron weighed in at 17.6 lbs. at his last visit.)
I’m being serious here. I thought the reason they mentioned the birth weight was one, to give a metric that indicated the health of the baby, less than 7 = not to good, 7 and ounces = good, 8 and over = better than good.
That may be an old wives tale, I don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t hold true now with advances in medical science.
Another signal the weight sent out was the difficulty of labor, think of a 140 lb woman pushing out an 8 lb 7oz baby. <shudder>.
The last thing with the weight is that they have been doing it so long that people now expect to the parents to announce the birth weight, and it’s hard to break the habit.
Okay now for the Joke, I think it was G. Carlin, "I’ve been on a diet for two weeks now. I’ve lost 4 pounds, or two pounds a week. I’m going to stay on the diet till I’m at my orignial weight, 7 pounds 8 ounces.
My wife and I had a baby in November (actually, she did most of the work), 6 lbs 2 ozs. People still ask how much she weighs all the time. I think Brynda has it. It’s really kind of the only opening question you can ask, unless you know the person real well. Most people just want to see the baby anyway, and just ask a question to seem like they’re not totally ignoring the parents. Kind of a “How 'bout this weather?” type question for new parents.
I think some people ask because they like to know how big the baby was, not necessarily the actual weight. By knowing the weight you get a pretty good idea of the actual size of the baby. I think that’s what at least some people are actually interested in.
As an aside, a friend of mine gave birth to a 10 pound 11 oz. baby. That’s a freaking huge kid.
I was asked the birthweight question frequently, but there was also the question about my kid’s apgar scores. http://www.childbirth.org/articles/apgar.html --if you’re really curious. All this info gives is a general idea of how healthy the baby is right after birth, but that’s all in very general terms. A baby with a low birthweight may thrive very well as it gets older. The low birthweight and apgar score cannot be an indicator of how well he/she will thrive.
I don’t even remember what my kid’s apgars were–I suspect that the only parents who do are also the ones who are busy finding the best preschool while the kid’s still in utero, and having their SAT scores cast in bronze. I do, however, remember their birthweights–and the fact that my second child was almost named 14-inch head
I gotta agree with Brynda. At least in the spirit of the OP. There’s not really much to tell about, other than sex and dimentioms. Saying the baby looks like anyone is a gross exaggeration. What he/she looks like is a soggy prune. How such a noisey, homely being can inspire such instant love is a mystery to me.
Peace,
mangeorge
But how would you know if the birthweight was “freakishly” large or small unless someone told you?
I mean, people always comment on how cute Emmy is when we take her out but inevitably they will ask how old she is. When we tell them she’s a little over 13 months, they are shocked by her size and we have to explain she was born very prematurely. They always ask how much she weighed at birth–then when we tell them 14.8 ounces, that startes another round of conversation.
Sometimes the weight itself IS interesting. More often than not it’s only because people commiserate with a tiny woman squeezing out such a large baby!
Thanks for all the responses. But to clarify, my question is based on why the weight is almost always given out WITHOUT asking, at least in my experience. So it’s not me making idle conversation, or me trying to compare a baby to others. Instead, it always seems to be part of the birth announcement (verbal or otherwise) - “Billy Bob Jr. was born Thursday morning at 10:30 at weight 7 pounds 10 ounces.” Completely unsolicited.
I do kinda think it’s just momentum, like SandWriter says.
And Evilbeth, I would maintain that if the baby WAS freakishly large (like BobT ) or small, that would certainly be a interesting topic of conversation, and I can see why the parents might bring it up for something to talk about. But if the baby’s 7.2 pounds or 7.8 pounds or anywhere right around there, why even mention it? I guess several others here are right, though, there really isn’t much to talk about when it comes to a new baby. They don’t exactly do many interesting things.
mangeorge
How such a noisey, homely being can inspire such instant love is a mystery to me.
It’s a special hormone that makes the brain drop out. Unfortunately parents assume that it affects others, hence the assumption that we care about the weight of the baby. We’d actually like a reliable estimate of how long we need to stay away before the parents are capable of intelligent conversation without the b-word.
I think raygirvan has it right. Parents are fascinated by everything about their baby and so they assume everyone else will be too so they share everything they know about it with you–sadly this is usually only the length, weight and name!
Speaking as a father of children who were all born prematurely, I can tell you that when people ask you what the birth weight is, it’s a polite way of asking the baby’s immediate prospects.
I’m going to go with Brynda here. People want to be supportive and interested, but what can you say about a baby? “What are its interests?” “How does it feel about the situation in Iraq?” There’s just not that much to talk about, other than what it looks like, and let’s face it, babies look pretty much the same.
They say that the only time a man between the ages of 15 and 50 is capable of rational thought is in the 10 minutes after orgasm. Maybe it’s the case that for women, the ability for organised (I’m talking about my wife here) thought-processes goes bye-bye for the first x days after birth
PS - wait until it’s instant love of grandchildren you’re talking about - POWER
