If you’ve yet to have a baby and the thought of childbirth is mildly horrifying to you, you should probably click off this post now.
The average birth weight for babies is around 7.5 lb – and even that’s a bit of a squeeze, to put it mildly.
So imagine giving birth to a baby nearly twice the size of that – almost as heavy as a 2-year-old.
We do hear of moms giving birth to bigger-than-average babies from time to time, but a 12 lb is something else entirely.
Perhaps we never would have found out about Erika Silence Weber’s ginormous newborn had it not been for a TikTok post.
TikToker @tawnee117 made a video saying: “I wanna see who had the biggest baby. Whoever sees this video, tell me the weight of your biggest baby.”
Of course, Erika had something to brag about, so she was quick to respond.
She said:
“So everyone keeps tagging me in this and telling me I should do this. At 37 weeks I went in for an ultrasound and my son was weighing in at 9lb 15oz so we scheduled for a c-section.”
Can you imagine how Erika must have felt when she discovered that her son was already so large, when she still had a few weeks to go?
Thankfully, Erika had already arranged for a c-section, which would hopefully save some, er, damage.
She recalled:
“I ended up being put into labour the day before c-section and I still went with a c-section because the doctor highly advised that, and… I had a baby that was 12lbs 6oz!”
The video went viral, and has been viewed by more than six million fellow TikTok. It has 1.8 million likes and hundreds of comments, most of which come from users who were astounded by the size of the tot.
There were plenty of jokers in the comments. One person wrote:
“Bro came out with a whole credit score.”
Someone else joked:
“That child came out already three years old.”
After so much response from her initial video, Erika made a few other videos about her mammoth pregnancy.
Someone asked to see a picture of her bump, so she shared a photo of her standing outside her car before heading to hospital for her c-section.
In case you were wondering, big babies aren’t a super common thing – so if you’re currently in the early stages of pregnancy, don’t panic!
It’s thought that only one percent of all babies born weigh more than 9 pounds, 1 ounce.
So the odds of delivering a 12-ounce baby like Erika are very slim!
There are a few things that can make you more likely to deliver a particularly large baby, though.
Moms who are obese, moms with type 2 diabetes and moms who have given birth to a large baby in the past are more susceptible to delivering big babies.
Overdue babies are also more likely to be larger, for obvious reasons.
There are a few myths about macrosomia (larger than average newborns). Some people say that eating a vegetarian diet during pregnancy will prevent macrosomia, and that simply gaining more weight will mean you have a bigger child.
None of these are true, of course. Everyone wants to offer advice to a pregnant woman, but if you’re uncertain about anything, it’s best to seek advice from your doctor and your doctor only.
You can check out Erika’s TikTok video, which explains her birth story in more detail, just below.
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@erikasilenceweber
#stitch with @tawnee117 #greenscreen #mommy #baby #babyboy #fyp #bigbaby @keewee67
♬ original sound – Erika Silence Weber
