Natashia Corrigan, an Australian mother, has given birth to her third child, a baby who has weighed six kilos at birth, twice the average weight of a newborn. But if the newborn's weight is surprising, even more so is the fact that has given birth without epidural. Instead, he chose an analgesic gas, which is known as laughing gas.
Even the woman herself was surprised at the size of her baby, which measured 57 centimeters. Although doctors had warned him that his baby would be born with an unusual weight to exceed 4 kilos in the 36th week of pregnancy.
The baby, whom they called Brian, was born on January 24 at Mercy Hospital, in Melbourne, with 40 weeks gestation. His mother shared the photos on his Facebook profile and the story went viral because he was one of the heaviest newborns in Australia.
It is not the biggest newborn baby in the world. According to the Guiness Book, the baby with more weight was born in 1879 and with 10 kilos, but unfortunately, he died 11 hours later. There is also a record of a baby in Texas who was born with 7,540 kilos and another in Indonesia with 8.7 kilos.
Babies too big
Beyond curiosity, being born too big has its risks. Having a high weight or height at birth is called "macrosomia" and usually causes difficulties in childbirth due to the size of the baby. The majority ends in caesarean section or instrumental delivery, so the case of this mother is even more amazing.
Among the most frequent risk factors are maternal obesity, having given birth to a previous macrosomic baby, a male fetus, and appreciating an increase in weight and especially the BMI (body mass index) of the remarkable mother. And especially maternal diabetes is the most common factor in many cases.
Gas of laughter: alternative to epidural
He nitrous gas It is a colorless and odorless gas whose use is widespread in other countries such as Finland, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. There about half of women opt for this method to relieve the pain of contractions because it is easy to use and relatively useful.
Its effectiveness is not as potent as that provided by epidural anesthesia, but one of its advantages is that it does not nullify the reflex reflex and allows you to adopt the desired position during contractions.
It acts by neutralizing nerve transmission at the brain level causing the sensation of pain to diminish, or at least one lives in a different way. The person when taking it feels pleasant dizziness and relaxation that can lead to laughter when there is no pain.
