A Utah mother has given birth to a 14lb baby boy who's already wearing the same sized diapers as his two-year-old twin sisters. Joel Brandon, Jr., was delivered on May 9 by cesarean section at Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem, Utah, according to ABC News.
Joel Brandon Jr., nicknamed J.J was born weighing in at 14 pounds and measuring 22 inches long. He's in the 150th percentile for height and weight in his age group. After he was born, J.J. spent about a week and a half in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit due to respiratory problems, according to the report. Sara said since he's been home he is doing well.
"I had to have two [obstetricians] deliver him instead of one, because they knew he was going to be big," said Brandon. "They struggled to get him out."
According to Dr. Robert Barbieri, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, J.J. was more likely to be oversize because Brandon has type 1 diabetes.
"An interesting effect of insulin, if it's not taken in a sufficient amount, the glucose remains high, and the baby's glucose starts to rise," said Barbieri. "It's like giving the baby fertilizer and it grows very large."
This begs the question, are babies getting bigger? "Overall, there's been a 15 percent to 25 percent increase in babies weighing 8 pounds, 13 ounces or more (or 4,000 grams, the weight where a baby is considered oversized) in the past two to three decades in developed countries, according to a February report in the medical journal The Lancet.," ABC News reports.
