A woman in Indonesia gave birth to a baby the size of a year-old toddler on Monday. The boy weighed in at 19.2 pounds and two feet long and came into the world safely via C-section, NBC News reported. (Check out the video on the Web site.)
The big boy, who hasn’t been named yet, set a record in Indonesia, but he came short of the world record of 23 pounds set in 1879. Doctors speculate that the boy grew so big because his mother had gestational diabetes. The condition causes babies to receive too much glucose in the womb.
“He’s got a strong appetite, it’s almost nonstop feeding,” his doctor told Agence France-Presse. “This baby boy is extraordinary; the way he’s crying is not like a usual baby. It’s really loud.”
But for his mother, we’re sure, the baby’s size just means there’s more to love.
The baby was ready to be born, but no one else was available to help except for her big sister.
Mom Briana Johnson had to depend on her 6-year-old daughter, Diyana, to fetch towels and other supplies. Johnson, a nurse from the Raleigh, NC, area, had to deliver the infant herself on Wednesday because the baby came faster than the ambulance and relatives.
Diyana saw her mom in pain through the contractions, but managed to be brave and not cry. “I was asleep and my mama woke me up,” Diyana told the Raleigh News & Observer. “She had stomach pains, and then she had the baby. I helped by getting the baby a blanket and opening the door for the rescue squad.”
Madisyn, who weighed 5.5 pounds, was born safe and sound. And her sister, Diyana, knows firsthand where babies come from.
Staffers at Williston’s Mercy Medical Center in North Dakota are scratching their heads trying to figure out how they sent a new mom home with the wrong baby, according to the Associated Press. The mistake happened last weekend, was discovered within an hour, and the mother was quickly reunited with her own child.
The Mercy mix-up is hardly the only recent incident of its kind. In March of this year, Shatiesha Brown, 32, was dismayed to learn that another mother had been given her baby to breast feed at Brookdale Hospital. After the incident, her daughter, Anya, rejected breast milk.
The judge wanted Lisa Marie Morris to be a lesson to all other parents — if you forget your child in a hot car, you go to jail.
Morris, 26, was sentenced last week to five years in prison followed by five years on probation for leaving her baby inside her car. Morris and her cousin had returned to her Augusta, Ga., area home after running errands on Aug. 7, 2008, and Morris says she thought the cousin had brought the child inside. Instead, Dalton Morris, who was just six weeks old, died in the car, where temperatures reached up to 126 degrees.
Morris pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and asked the judge not to send her to jail because she needs to take care of her 5-year-old daughter.
But Judge Michael N. Annis showed no mercy, the Augusta Chronicle reported. He said that Dalton’s death was completely preventable.
Two months before her due date, Valerie Post was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with swine flu. Doctors performed an emergency C-section and delivered a healthy baby girl, Nora. But Post, 24, has been in a medically induced coma since the Aug. 7 delivery.
Swine flu usually causes only mild problems in otherwise healthy people. But it can strike harder in pregnant women, and doctors are urging them to get the vaccine once it’s available in October. The hospital in Tampa, where Post is being treated, reports that an average of one pregnant woman a week has been hospitalized for the flu. Usually it’s about two per season, reports the St. Petersburg Times.
Cases as severe as Post’s are rare, but doctors are urging expecting moms are urged to call immediately if they have a fever, cough or sore throat. For the latest updates on swine flu, click on the Centers for Disease Control Web site.
A teacher’s aide apparently forgot to take her seven-month-old girl to a babysitter and instead left the child in a school parking lot while she worked on Friday. Addeleena Sanchez died after being left in the car for five hours on Friday at Bowie Elementary School near Dallas, the Corsicana Daily Sun reported.
The child’s mother, 23, called her babysitter around 1:20 p.m., and that’s when she realized that she had forgotten the girl in the car. The temperature then in Corsicana, Tex., was 89 degrees. Police are investigating and have not yet decided whether to charge the mother.
So far this year, 29 kids have died after being left in hot cars. See stories about the tragedies here.
A man told police that he mixed crushed aspirin tablets into a jar of baby food at a CVS drug store in San Jose and may have poisoned more baby food at another store.
Cops have recovered a possibly contaminated jar of Gerber apple-flavored oatmeal. They’re asking customers to be careful with any baby food jars that appear to be tampered with, the San Jose Mercury News reported this weekend.
David Conklin, a 29-year-old transient, has been arrested and is being held ona charge of suspicion of felony poisoning. He had called police to tell them that he had done a “bad thing.”
One-year-old Giselle Gomez was so overheated after being left in a car that her face and body became covered with yellow heat blisters. The child died on Wednesday, and now her mother, Jennifer Gomez, has been jailed and charged with felony child endangerment.
Jennifer Gomez, 22, had left Giselle and her two-year-old sister in the car while she visited at relative at an insurance agency in Belleville, Mo. The kids had been sleeping, and the car’s engine was left running, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The older child might have accidently turned on the heater, but later managed to leave the car and was not injured, detectives told the newspaper. Giselle wasn’t so lucky — she was strapped into a car seat — and was trapped inside the hot vehicle for at least an hour. The outside temperature at the time was 89 degrees.
A five-month-old Florida boy died after his mother accidently left him in her SUV when she went to work, police said. Gannon Werking had been in the car from about 8:30 a.m. Thursday until his mom discovered him the back seat of her gray Ford Edge at about 5 p.m., parked outside an office building, the Treasure Coast Palm reported.
A passerby called 911 after he saw Stephanie Werking “screaming hysterically” in the parking lot, authorities said. The high temperature in Vero Beach on Thursday was 90 degrees.
She cared enough about the sick pet, but the baby got left behind. A suburban Atlanta mom left her 2-month-old baby boy in her sweltering SUV as she took her pet to the vet last Thursday, police said. She did, however, take her other two kids inside the office with her.
A passerby called cops after spotting the sweating child, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. He had been in the Ford Expedition for about 40 minutes, with the windows rolled up, authorities said. The temperature inside was estimated at 90 degrees.
The baby was treated at a hospital and released into the care of other relatives. His mother, 38-year-old Dawn Myers, was arrested and charged with cruelty to children. It was not reported what type of pet she took to the vet’s office and that animal’s condition.