Giant baby hysteria.

I had a low lying placenta placement and had to have an ultrasound at 35 weeks to make sure it had moved up and out of the way. At that ultrasound, I'm sure you remember me ranting about this, the tech tried to tell us that the baby was already over 7 pounds. Which, given the weight gain they do in the last month, put us on par for an over 10 pound baby. You may also remember me dismissing this as crap.

As we passed the due date and the midwives got increasingly nervous about getting labor started, they also tried to tell me he was going to be a big baby and we should try to get him out sooner rather than later because all he was doing was putting on weight. They could "tell" by direct palpation of my belly. Now, throughout my pregnancy, the midwives had been emphasizing that you will grow the right size baby for your body, and only in the rarest of circumstances will you grow a baby that is "too big". So why all the concern about a huge baby?

What, really is the difference between a 7 pound and a 10 pound baby? The head can't be much, if any bigger. It's really just the body that would have extra fat on it. So why all the hysterics? Maybe because of other complications further down the line? I have no idea. With some midwives, they assured me that a 10 pound baby was not going to be a problem for me to deliver, but towards the end, everyone seemed to latch on to that as a reason to get me to try various induction methods - like the dreaded foley catheter.

The punchline of this whole story? My son was born at 7 pounds, 11 ounces. And he was 11 days overdue. Had he been born "on time" at 40 weeks, he would have likely been under 7 pounds. So all this hysteria about having a giant baby was for nothing. It was just one more way to stress me out about an already stressful situation. I've said this before and I'll say it again: the weight estimate via ultrasound is crap. It's almost always wrong, and you shouldn't let anyone make decisions about your healthcare based on that information. Maybe, if you combine that information with other fact-based data - like having gestational diabetes or something - then you could consider it. But otherwise? Don't even let them give you the number. It will make you worry unnecessarily about something you can't do anything about. (Ask me how I know.)