The baby's birth weight is not the heavier the better I remember the "Eight jin Old Lady" in the primary school textbook, because the old lady was born with a weight of eight jin, hence the name. When the child was born, he weighed eight kilograms. In recent years, the record of child birth weight has been constantly refreshed, reaching a peak this month. According to a report from the World Daily News Network, on June 4, 2015, a pregnant woman in Australia gave birth to a giant baby, which weighed up to 40 pounds (about 18.16 kg). His birth made many medical staff exclaim repeatedly because his weight was the same as that of a 6-year-old child, and he also broke the world record for the heaviest baby in 1839. Of course, his mother's weight is up to 272kg.
Both parents and elders like "fat boy" or "fat girl", and think that the fat baby is a symbol of happiness. Is the baby's birth weight really the heavier the better?
The average weight of newborns at birth is generally 3.0 kg (2.5~4 kg). Newborn babies whose birth weight is less than 2.5 kg are called low birth weight babies. During pregnancy, maternal malnutrition or disease factors may cause fetal growth retardation and low birth weight. Low birth weight infants have less subcutaneous fat, weak respiratory and metabolic functions, low immunity, and are prone to infection. The risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases of infants with low birth weight is significantly increased in adulthood.
With the improvement of living standards and health knowledge, people pay more and more attention to nutrition in early life and nutrition of pregnant women during pregnancy. But less nutrition is not good, too much will also have an impact on health. In 1992, Barker put forward that at the critical moment of life development, if the fetus is in the womb of the mother who lacks nutrition, the "thrifty gene" or "thrifty performance" will be retained. After birth, obesity is more likely to occur if the food intake and nutritional status are different from the maternal uterine nutritional status. Low birth weight infants are prone to chronic diseases such as hypertension and abnormal glucose tolerance in adulthood. With the development of modern scientific research, some people have carried out retrospective surveys or prospective cohort studies on the relationship between the weight of newborns and obesity and chronic diseases in adulthood. There is also more evidence that macrosomia infants are more likely to suffer from obesity, hypertension and other chronic diseases in adulthood than normal weight newborns.
Excessive energy intake during pregnancy will not only cause obesity of pregnant women, but also lead to diabetes, hypertension and pregnancy induced hypertension syndrome, and also lead to overweight of newborns. A newborn with a birth weight of more than 4 kg is called a macrosomia. Compared with children and adolescents with normal birth weight, in addition to increasing the risk of dystocia, the risk of obesity of macrosomia children will increase when they grow up, and the possibility of diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and other diseases will also increase accordingly when they grow up. Giant babies are not easy to be delivered due to their fat body and wide shoulders during delivery, resulting in long labor process and dystocia, which will increase the mother's laceration during delivery.
Therefore, the weight of the newborn is not the heavier the better, and the appropriate weight is the good foundation for the healthy growth of the newborn.
Author: Ma Guansheng, Professor, Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Peking University Original text reading
