Newborn baby weighs nearly 6 kg

On October 23, Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Military Hospital 354, said that the pregnant woman was pregnant for the third time and was waiting for a "good day" for surgery. However, the doctor found that the 39-week-old fetus in the uterus had a scar, the baby's weight was large, and the mother was at risk of many dangerous complications.

The woman said she rarely went for prenatal check-ups and did not have screening tests to assess risks such as preeclampsia and diabetes. She also did not know that she was pregnant with a uterus with a cesarean section scar, so she did not anticipate the dangers she might encounter.

"It is extremely dangerous for a pregnant woman to be more than 39 weeks pregnant, with a large fetus, but still wait until the 'good day' to have a cesarean section," said Dr. Phuong.

Doctors immediately performed an emergency cesarean section, delivering a healthy baby girl weighing 5.9 kg. This is the heaviest newborn baby the obstetricians at the hospital have successfully delivered. Currently, the mother's health is stable.

Abnormally large pregnancies, weighing 4.5 kg or more, are considered high-risk pregnancies. Large pregnancies are often the cause of uterine rupture - a serious obstetric complication that can lead to death of both mother and child, especially when the uterus has a previous cesarean scar.

In addition, abnormally large fetuses are also common in pregnant women with diabetes during pregnancy, which is the cause of many serious complications such as preeclampsia, eclampsia, miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth... increasing the mortality rate for mother and fetus. Newborns are at risk of respiratory failure, hypoglycemia, hypocalcemia, hyperbilirubinemia, polycythemia and hyperviscosity that can lead to perinatal death.

Dr. Phuong recommends that pregnant women with a history of cesarean section need to be examined and closely managed in subsequent pregnancies. Heavy newborns need to be monitored regularly and should go to the hospital for examination if there are any unusual signs.

To date, the record for the heaviest baby born in Vietnam belongs to a 7.1 kg baby in Vinh Phuc, born in 2017. A baby girl in Gia Lai born in 2008 weighed nearly 7 kg. In 2014, a mother in Quang Nam weighing 102 kg gave birth to a 6.5 kg baby.