A woman in Brazil recently gave birth to a baby weighing 7.3 kg and measuring 59 cm. The baby, named Angerson Santos, was born via C-section at the Padre Colombo Hospital in Parentens, Brazil.

The world's heaviest baby was born in Italy in 1955 and weighed 10.2 kg.

Generally, a normal newborn boy weighs 3.3 kg and a girl weighs 3.2 kg at birth.

The birth of these healthy and overweight babies is called macrosomia, which is derived from the Latin word meaning 'large body'.

Any newborn baby weighing more than four kilograms, regardless of gestational age, is considered a macrosomic baby.

Macrosomics account for 12% of total births in the world. Women with gestational diabetes and high blood pressure have a 15% to 45% birth rate.

Why does this happen?

Certain factors increase a woman's risk of giving birth to a large baby, one of which is body weight. Obese mothers are more likely to have overweight babies.

Similarly, excessive weight gain during pregnancy also increases the risk of macrosomia. Similarly, having diabetes during pregnancy is also a danger sign.

According to doctors at Padre Colombo Hospital, the reason for Engerson's overweight and large size is that his mother has diabetes.

This condition is caused by increased insulin resistance in the mother during pregnancy (even in women who do not have gestational diabetes), which increases the amount of glucose in the body. which reaches the fetus from the mother's womb through the feeding tube and the fetus grows excessively.

In this condition, the fat also helps the fetus to enter the feeding tube and the baby grows more.

Late pregnancy in women also increases the risks of giving birth to macrosomic babies.

Women over 35 years of age have a 20% higher chance of having macrosomic babies. In this regard, the age of the child's father is also important. If the age of the man is more than 35 years, then the chances of giving birth to macrosomic children are 10% more.

Similarly, if a woman has already undergone the process of childbirth, the risks of macrosomia also increase as a result of her future childbirth. Similarly, prolonged gestation (ie, longer than 40 weeks, especially 42 weeks or more) also increases the risk of macrosomia.

Risks during pregnancy:

Babies with macrosomia are more likely to have difficulty passing through the birth canal because of their size.

For example, it is quite common for the baby's shoulder to get stuck behind the mother's hip bone. 

During pregnancy, when the baby becomes trapped in it, it cannot breathe and the food pipe connecting its uterus to the mother can become constricted. It can also fracture the baby's clavicle or damage the brachial plexus nerves in the arms. And in severe cases, the damage to the child can be permanent.

The incidence of shoulder dystocia at birth is approximately 0.7%, but the incidence rate in macrosomic infants is approximately 25%.

Mothers of babies with macrosomia are also at increased risk of vaginal rupture during delivery, which also increases the risk of postpartum hemorrhage.

Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide because the larger the baby, the greater the risk of vaginal trauma during normal delivery.

Macrosomia in newborns also increases the risk of prolongation in the second stage of labor, which is when the cervix has fully dilated and the baby's head has moved into the mother's vagina.

Because of the size of macrosomic infants, these movements may be less than normal, increasing the mother's risk of infection, urinary obstruction, and hematoma (internal bleeding).

One thing we don't know about macrosomic babies is whether they stay bigger than others throughout life.

There is limited data showing that they are more likely to be overweight or obese at age seven and more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.

We may see more 'weigher and bigger babies' born in the future as babies born after the 1970s gradually gained 450 grams more than the weight of the first born babies.

Also with the increasing rate of obesity being a major factor in the development of macrosomic children, it is likely that we will see more 'bigger' children.

This article first appeared on the academic news site The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons license.