Babies with high birth weigh and...

[BooksandBoys]

My first was almost 6 pounds but also almost 4 weeks early. I worked outside the home.

My second was nearly 9 pounds and overdue. I worked outside the home for half of the pregnancy, switched to stay-at-home, "homeschooling" my preschooler.

My third was 6 pounds and overdue. I was an at-home, homeschooler. Of course, I'm not religious. ;-)

[Paige]

My largest full term baby was 6lbs 5oz; other one was 5lbs 6oz. My preemies wouldn't count, but FWIW, they were small for gestational age. I fit your classification otherwise.

 

I've noticed in general that women are having larger babies, but I doubt it's correlated with homeschooling. Maybe you have selection bias if you don't know an equal number of non homeschooling mothers or maybe the less crunchy are less likely to talk about the details. 

[abcmommy]

I think its related to crunchiness but not to anything else.  When I worked with a homebirth CNM our average weight was 9#.  

[OH_Homeschooler]

My first baby was the smallest at birth and my last baby was the largest at birth. That's the only pattern I noticed--each baby was larger than the last. I also worked before a couple of the babies, and the smallest and largest births were when I was working. Middle-weight babies were when I stayed home. 

[Jerico]

I had big babies but i blame my husband for that ;) he was almost 7 pounds when born at 34 weeks. I was full-term at 4 pounds 9 ounces. Our kids were 8-7, 9-6, & 8-7 born between 39w4d and 41w5d

[Katy]

Yes, but I think this has more to do with pregnancy decisions than anything else.  Some people prioritize schedules and safety and some people prioritize letting nature take its course.

 

My friends who work plan when to get pregnant within certain windows, train their temporary replacements at work, schedule their C-sections for when their DH can easily take time off work, and NEVER let pregnancies go long.  I've never heard a home school mom say something like, "If I don't get pregnant in the next three months we're done trying until next year."  I've heard that sort of thing numerous times from working friends.  I've had a couple friends schedule their c-section for the very day they were full term just so they could get pregnancy over faster.

 

Homeschooling moms are much more of the "the baby will come when the baby comes," "No, I don't need another ultrasound, don't you know babies are healthier the higher their birth weight?" and "Heck no, I'm not letting you exam me.  You will not strip my membranes and I will not be induced, last time you estimated I was 4 weeks further along than I was!" Types.

[redsquirrel]

Yes, but I think this has more to do with pregnancy decisions than anything else.  Some people prioritize schedules and safety and some people prioritize letting nature take its course.

 

My friends who work plan when to get pregnant within certain windows, train their temporary replacements at work, schedule their C-sections for when their DH can easily take time off work, and NEVER let pregnancies go long.  I've never heard a home school mom say something like, "If I don't get pregnant in the next three months we're done trying until next year."  I've heard that sort of thing numerous times from working friends.  I've had a couple friends schedule their c-section for the very day they were full term just so they could get pregnancy over faster.

 

Homeschooling moms are much more of the "the baby will come when the baby comes," "No, I don't need another ultrasound, don't you know babies are healthier the higher their birth weight?" and "Heck no, I'm not letting you exam me.  You will not strip my membranes and I will not be induced, last time you estimated I was 4 weeks further along than I was!" Types.

 

I dunno, I know my fair share of homeschooling moms and SAHM who were all about the scheduled c-section and making sure the baby was born at the beginning of the semester break b/c it fit into dh's work schedule etc.  And I have plenty of homebirthing friends who are employed outside the home full time.

 

And I absolutely had a preferred 'window' of TTC because there were better and worse times for the baby to be born. There were months we skipped TTC b/c it would have been really inconvenient to be waiting for a birth at that particular time. And I really didn't want to be due in the middle of summer, lol. And ds2 was born in January...if we had TTC the month previous my due date would have been Christmas and I didn't want a Christmas baby. We already have a few of those in the family and I hear never ending complaints about that.

 

[EKS]

Both of my kids were 9 pounds.  I worked full time+ until two days past my due date with the older one and was a SAHM with the younger one.

[ocelotmom]

3 of my 4 were within an ounce of 6lb10z, which was also my birthweight (and neither DH nor I is a particularly small person). The fourth was smaller (I suspect due to a knot in the cord). I worked through two pregnancies, didn't work through two of them. Homeschooled during two of them. Varying diets, lifestyles, starting weights, pregnancy weight gain, and levels of exercise during pregnancy, all of them natural onset of labor... and they all ended up exactly the same (except one).

Edited November 19, 2015 by ocelotmom

[happypamama]

I think it's all over the place. However, for the granola crunchy sort, which homeschoolers do tend to be, I think home/natural birth tends to be popular, and they have lower rates of induction, meaning that babies cook longer and do tend to be a bit bigger. Also, I think midwives tend to freak out less about weight gain, so maybe those mamas gain a bit more and have bigger babies.

 

I'm a (petite) Christian homeschooling pretty granola crunchy mama who had one baby in a freestanding birth center with CNMs and the other four at home, one with a CNM and the rest with CPMs. All of my babies have come spontaneously, no inductions, and four of them were after 40 weeks. My fourth baby surprised us by showing up at 38w3d. I tend to gain very little weight (I think about 24 was the most, and that was with my first; I think I gained only about ten pounds with my fifth, even though I eat well and don't get sick), and my smallest baby, my early bird number four, was eight pounds even. My first was almost nine pounds, and my second, third, and fifth were all over nine pounds (my second was almost ten). All four boys have been right in line with each other for gestational dates; if baby four had waited another couple of weeks, he'd have been over nine pounds too.

 

I passed the diabetes screens the first two babies and decided it wasn't a terribly useful test for me (either I had it and it didn't catch it, and it didn't matter, or I don't have it and just grow them big), so I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore.

[HSmomof2]

I vote genetics, too.

 

I'm a Christian, wasn't overweight (at that timeðŸ˜),was working from home at a low stress job before ds was born, sahm when dd was born. Not homeschooling when pregnant. (Ds was only 2 when dd was born) Ds was 5 lbs (preemie born at 35 weeks). Dd was just over 8 lbs full-term.

 

Edited to fix 'autocorrect'

Edited November 19, 2015 by Bethany Grace

[Peaceful Isle]

9 pounder here! My others were between 7 - 8 pounds only because they were taken by c section 2 to 3 weeks early. They would have been between 9 and 10 pounds like my first born!

My dr actually said I was one of the smallest pregnant women they had seen in a while, lol

Edited November 19, 2015 by peaceful isle

[December]

Maybe SAHM have more time and energy to focus on what they eat, and eat more of foods that help the baby bulk up.  A lot of crunchy women follow what is known as the "Brewer's Diet" while pregnant which requires you to eat a huge amount of protein.  Just anecdotally, I've heard a lot of midwives say that women who follow this diet often have 9-10 lb babies.  I have had three 10lbers myself (at 39 weeks) and I did eat a lot of protein while pregnant, though I was also a 10 lb baby myself.

Edited November 20, 2015 by December

[luuknam]

My mom was a SAHM and Christian at the time my brother and I were born (different years), and I was slightly less than 5 (Dutch) pounds (somewhere between 5 and 5.5lbs), and my brother was slightly more than 5 (Dutch) pounds, so somewhere between 5.5 and 6lbs. She didn't homeschool us, since that's not a thing in NL. I was born 3 weeks early, and I think my brother was also something like 2-3 weeks early (both of us were home births).

 

Both my kids were between 8 and 9lbs (I'm not a Christian though) - I think 8lbs 11oz for the first and 8lbs 6oz for the second, but I'm not sure. I tried to do a home birth for my first, but the combination of his huge head and my failure to progress past 9cm meant he turned into an emergency c-section. He was born after his due date. My second ended up being a scheduled c-section because of that (doctor was unwilling to risk a VBAC), and doctor and I had a disagreement about the due date (doctor was going by ultrasound, and my prediction was a week sooner than his), so he ended up being an unscheduled c-section less than a day before the scheduled c-section, which was somewhere between my and the doctor's estimates of the due date.

 

ETA: maybe they're called metric pounds - not sure. I wrote Dutch pounds because I couldn't think of a good word, but they're 500 grams (now, Dutch ounces are even weirder... they're 100 grams).

 

ETA2: my midwife complained to me that I wasn't gaining enough weight. I gained about 10lbs each pregnancy, so that after the baby was out I actually weighed less than what I started with (because baby+placenta+fluids > 10lbs). Unfortunately, sleep deprivation etc from newborns brought me back to "pre-pregnancy weight" real easily.

Edited November 20, 2015 by luuknam

[Ms.Ivy]

I kinda loosely followed the Brewer/high protein diet while preggo.  I think it has to do with not being afraid of mommy weight gain, and also being around food all day long.  All my babies were over 8 lbs, some over 9.  Even my twins.  

[kbutton]

I've never noticed the correlation, but I wasn't looking for it either. 

 

Mine were 10-11 lbs. each, no gest. diabetes.  I had an Italian pediatrician once who noticed how big my newborns and toddlers were, and asked if I was of "Eastern European ethnicity".  I had no idea, and asked why he was asking.  He said those women often have very large babies.  And I have no idea what he was talking about there either.    :tongue_smilie:

 

Very interesting. My (tiny at the time) grandmother of eastern European origin had large babies--two were ten pounds, and I don't think any were under about 8.5 lbs. The largest two both grew up to be well over six feet tall. 

 

Any other correlation I've seen has more to do with parents' own birth weight or size of parents (tall, big-boned people had babies that were large). My brother and I were 2.5 lbs. apart or so, and we have no familial explanation for that.

[Kharisma]

Not so for us. I was working full time and had a 9lb er. Than my second I was down to working 30 hours and she was almost 11 pounds. I even gained less weight with my second.  I want a third, but everyone likes to say things like that baby will walk out of my womb and be some crazy weight. That and a second section really makes me think twice about it too.

[Zinnia]

Not so for us. I was working full time and had a 9lb er. Than my second I was down to working 30 hours and she was almost 11 pounds. I even gained less weight with my second.  I want a third, but everyone likes to say things like that baby will walk out of my womb and be some crazy weight. That and a second section really makes me think twice about it too.

 

My babies have not gotten bigger as I have more, even though that is the way it works "for everyone."  :)  Mine were 11-14, 9-7, 11-1, and 9-10.  The easiest pregnancy was the smallest baby, which makes sense, but no real big differences between nutrition/activity/exercise/etc.  Just the way that those babies were meant to be.

[lotsofpumpkins]

Not so for us. I was working full time and had a 9lb er. Than my second I was down to working 30 hours and she was almost 11 pounds. I even gained less weight with my second.  I want a third, but everyone likes to say things like that baby will walk out of my womb and be some crazy weight. That and a second section really makes me think twice about it too.

 

Mine were 9 lb 7 oz, 8 lb 8 oz, 10 lb 12 oz, 10 lb 13 oz, 9 lb 5 oz, and 9 lb 0 oz. So, the thing about them getting bigger and bigger with each pregnancy didn't hold true for me. It was more related to their individual genetics. Yes, they started off big, but 4 of the 6 (all of the ones who were under 10 lb at birth) ended up down around 10% on the growth charts by the time they were a year or so old. The 2 biggest ones are above average for height.

 

BTW, I was working almost fulltime during the 1st pregnancy, then about 10 hours per week during the 2nd pregnancy. I didn't work outside the home for any of the others. I gained an average of 45 lb every pregnancy (which I was able to lose while bf'ing.) My body just likes to gain a lot and make large babies! The smallest was born 4 days before his due date; the rest were born within a day or two or their due dates.

 

ETA: No diabetes here, though I've been told now that I've had some huge babies my risk of developing it later on are higher. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Edited November 22, 2015 by lotsofpumpkins

[MrsWeasley]

I wonder if homeschoolers are more likely to be "crunchy" or otherwise more willing to question authority (or whatever), so that they are more likely to resist the common-in-some-areas-and-with-some-doctors pressure to induce around 40 weeks and so are more likely as a group to go longer past their due date than others, which would contribute to higher birth weights.

 

I had two early inductions for medical reasons (35wk and 37wk), with one spontaneous labor at 39wk, and my babies' birth weights tracked along with gestation length (6lb 5oz, 7lb 3oz, and 7lb 8oz).

 

I'm not Christian, but my kids were all between 8lbs 13 oz and 9lbs 8 oz. All my kids were born after their due date, and two of the three of them were born after 41 weeks. If I hadn't had my kids at home, I would have faced very strong pressure to induce. But I'm not surprised that I have larger babies, given that I give them a bit of extra time to grow.

Edited November 22, 2015 by MrsWeasley