I cannot believe she had that baby at home. I had my 11-pounder at the hospital.That was hard enough. Fourteen pounds, four midwives to pull him out...INSANE.

ok so im a lad and have no idear about child birth but surly im not the only persson to think OUCH!!!!!!!!!

My daughter in law is due any time now. She is small, and the ultrasounds show this baby to be on the large side. Needless to say, this is her biggest fear right now.

I may wait to share this with her until after she delivers.

My cousins first child was a behemoth--something like 12 pounds. I can't imagine 14.

And yes, smhb, ouch, ouch, ouch!

Wow! Good job, Momma. I hope her husband waits on her hand and foot for a good couple of weeks!

Gah! Just Gah!

Are babies getting bigger?

The average is listed as about 7lbs. When I was born I was 8lb 4ozs and considered to be very big.

One of the things my dad will tell you with almost no prompting is that the first time he held me, my legs hung over his elbow at the knee.

But now, 8lb 4ozs seems at the very least not unusual, more likely not common.

"average weight is 7.5 pounds: 95% of new babies weigh between 5.5 and 10 pounds," per just about all GH I checked. So this baby is double average!!

While I didn't find anything giving a specific comparison of current 'average' to 1950's average (just a random number I picked out--57 years is enough to show trends is populations), I would have to guess that the average birth rate hasn't changed much, but that there have been shifts in distribution. In the US, factors driving the overall average up include better health awareness of pregnant women--very, very few women smoke during pregnancy, ditto that for drinking, higher accessibility to better nutrition during pregnancy, and, sadly, the growing waistlines of the American population-bigger people have bigger babies. Factors that reduce the overall average including shifting demographics-- average African American, Latin American and Asian babies are smaller than Caucasion babies (LA and Asians now make up much more of the overall population than they did in the US in 1950), there are more babies being born premature (and more of those survive now, too), the average age for first time mothers has increased (older women have smaller babies), and the increased use of fertilizations resulting in multiple births. Obviously, there's a lot more at work, and any one factor could outpace the others, but overall I'd imagine they cancel each other out--afterall, a range of 5.5 - 10 pounds is huge.

Is it so hard for people to just not post things about childbirth. I am 20 and I remember watching a womans vagina tear 3inches in a video we watched in health class, I would like to have a child eventually but I may get my tubes tied if the media doesn't stop scaring the crap out of my vagina.