This thread makes me feel better. I think this baby is going to be really
big and I'm kind of scared of that. The father, Matt was 5 pounds and
something and he was born at 7-7.5 months gestation. He would have been huge
at full term I think! He's also quite big now. I on the other hand was 6lbs
and half an ounce when I was born. Anyways the ultrasound showed the baby is
right now 12 inches long. Two inches bigger then average from everywhere I
read. o_O If it keeps up the growth, it's going to be huge.
"Joybelle" wrote in message
...

"Emily" wrote in message
news:QFUWb.165761$U%5.738908@attbi_s03...
Hi folks,

I was just reading the thread from last week about u/s
predicting weight (and how inaccurate they are), and I wanted
to ask a question. I'd been under the impression that the
baby's weight isn't really a huge factor in how hard or easy
the delivery is. My doula for #1 said that the later one goes
the less a baby's head can mold, and so the harder it is to
fit. That seemed to make sense to me (#1 was born at 39 weeks,
and things went pretty well). But it would also seem to imply
that weight is only a correlate and not a cause of more difficult
deliveries, since later babies tend to weigh more, too.

In sum, the hardest part is getting the head out, and heavier
babies don't necessarily have bigger heads, just more fat
on them, right?


Well, for me, the 8 lb 3 oz baby was tougher to push out than the 10 lb 3 oz
baby. They were the same gestational age at a little over 41 weeks. People
are positively shocked when they hear I had a 10-pounder at home, and so far
it has been no use explaining that it wasn't much different from the
8-pounder, and maybe even a little easier.



(In my one experience, the actual pushing wasn't the hard part
at all, but rather all the rest of labor getting the cervix
open enough. But I understand that YMMV, and I was blessed with
a short pushing stage.)


With my first baby, I had an epidural, and pushing ended up being a breeze.
My second and third were born at home, and the pushing stage was so very,
very difficult. I had to push against a cervical lip both times, though.

Joy

Rose 1/99
Iris 2/01
Spencer 3/03