This wonderful couple came to me two days after their “due date” which had been calculated by an ultrasound – we all know that ultrasounds are notoriously inaccurate for dating babies. This was their first baby and they had been scheduled for an induction the following day and had been threatened, heard the word “cesarean” thrown at them several times because the ultrasound had also “told” them that the baby was over eleven pounds and that the mom had too much amniotic fluid. The couple’s doula had told them to set up a consult with me to get a second opinion. They drove almost two hours that late afternoon to meet with me.
When I met Kate, she looked the picture of health – beautiful and pregnant. She did not look as if she was carrying an eleven pound baby, and even if she was ( I have attended several women with babies well over ten pounds, a few over eleven, and one which was twelve pounds six ounces), who cares? The head position and size is what matters, and some larger babies can have the same head circumference as a smaller baby – the only reason they weigh so much is that they are chubby, and the chubby parts squish to come out! I asked Kate’s permission to palpate her belly – and when I did, I asked her if anyone else had FELT her baby like this. She said no one had, that all that her doctor did was to put the ultrasound wand on her and listen to the fetal heart tones. I told her that she did have a good sized baby but not an eleven pound one, and that the amniotic fluid level felt perfect – we all know that ultrasounds are notoriously inaccurate at measuring fluid levels.
Kate and Ryan decided then and there to have a home birth with me and eleven days later, they had a beautiful eight pound ten ounce baby boy.