One in 10 babies are born ‘unusually large’
Around one in 10 babies across the Black Country and Staffordshire are born unusually large, latest NHS figures show.
Hundreds of babies born at health trusts across the region are heavier than 4kg – about 8.8lbs – meaning they are considered large.
Health experts have warned about the dangers of unusually large babies, with difficulties experience both during labour and delivery.
The medical term for a larger baby is macrosomia.
In Wolverhampton, 500 babies born between March 2017 and March last year tipped the scales at more than 8lb 13oz.
Over the period a total of 4,790 babies were born, meaning around 10 per cent were unusually large.
Across the border in Dudley, 390 babies out of the 4,245 born weighed in at more than 4kg, a total of nine per cent.
This proportion of large babies born was the same at both Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust where 305 and 500 unusually large babies were born respectively.
At the University Hospitals Of North Midlands NHS Trust, which runs County Hospital in Stafford, 11 per cent of the 6,170 babies born were judged to be suffering from macrosomia.
Obese mothers are twice as likely to have a baby weighing at least 4kg, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Across England, almost 60,000 babies born weighed in at 4kg or over – 11 per cent of the total.
