Texas Woman Gives Birth to 16-Pound Baby

by cexline | July 12, 2011 at 11:26 am

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At 9:05 Friday morning, Janet Johnson gave birth to 16-pound. 1-ounce, 2-foot-long JaMichael Brown at Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview, Texas.

JaMichael was quickly nicknamed "The Moose," and is the largest child ever born in the hospital and quite possibly the state. The average size of a newborn in approximately 7 pounds, eight ounces. JaMichael's weight of 16 pounds is about the equivalent of a six-month-old.

JaMichael's parents, Janet Johnson and Michael Brown, said that they expected a big baby, around 12 to 13 pounds, before the scheduled Cesarean birth. The mother suffers from gestational diabetes, which can result in bigger birth weights. A representative from the American Diabetes Association states:

When you have gestational diabetes, your pancreas works overtime to produce insulin, but the insulin does not lower your blood glucose levels. Although insulin does not cross the placenta, glucose and other nutrients do. So extra blood glucose goes through the placenta, giving the baby high blood glucose levels. This causes the baby's pancreas to make extra insulin to get rid of the blood glucose. Since the baby is getting more energy than it needs to grow and develop, the extra energy is stored as fat.

The hospital staff is currently trying to get the child's blood sugar levels back up, but expects that the baby and mother will be released in a couple of days.

The Johnsons have three other children, including an 18-, 16- and 10-year old. JaMichael will reportedly be their last. Janet said:

I’m happy. We’ll be here for a few more days, and then I’m looking forward to bringing JaMichael home and just loving on him.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest baby was born in Ohio in 1879 and weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces. The baby nicknamed "giant baby" was born in Brazil in 2005 and weighed 17 pounds. Another baby in Indonesia in 2009 weighed in at 19.2 pounds, which set a record for the country and caught global attention on the Internet.