A woman in Germany has given birth naturally to an enormous baby that would usually have been born via Caesarian section.
The baby was delivered weighing 13 pounds and measuring 24 inches tall on June 8, in a hospital in the town of Hagenow, Germany, local news SVZ reported.
The baby, named Raphael, is one the largest seen in the town for the past 30 years, with his natural birth making him a rarity. Raphael's unusually great weight and length are on par with that of a 3.5-month-year-old, according to CDC growth charts for newborn boys.
"This child is certainly among the top 10 births in Hagenow over the past 30 years," Lars Autrum, the chief physician for gynecology and obstetrics at the hospital, told SVZ.
Senior physician Frank Schönherr and midwife Benita Dähn both said to the local news outlet that they had never seen such a large baby, especially one born naturally.
On average, babies in Europe are born weighing around 7.7 pounds, ranging between 5.5 and 8.8 pounds. Babies born larger than 90 percent of newborns are known as "large for gestational age."
Around one in 10 babies born in the U.S. in 1991 at full term weighed more than 8 pounds, 13 ounces, while three in 100 babies weighed more than 9 pounds, 11 ounces.
The Guinness World Record for the largest baby ever belongs to a baby born in 1879 in Ohio, which weighed 22 pounds. The mother herself was 7 feet 11 inches tall, while the father was 7 feet and 9 inches tall, and the baby sadly died 11 hours after birth.
Large babies can lead to major risks to both the baby and the mother if born vaginally: natural birth can mean long delivery times, injuries to the baby, blood loss for the mother, and need for a Caesarian section, according to the University of Rochester.
Larger babies may also be at higher risk of respiratory distress syndrome, and have excessive amounts of red blood cells, which can lead to liver damage and jaundice.
Babies of this sort of size are often booked in to be born via a Caesarian section to avoid the issues that may come with natural birth. Raphael was born naturally due to being predicted to be much smaller than he actually ended up being.
"Children gain weight very differently in the last phase of pregnancy, which makes it difficult to diagnose the exact weight," Autrum said.
Luckily, his mother, Stefanie Oldag, suffered no complications with the birth, and Raphael was born healthy.
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