44-Pound Baby Weighs as Much as a 5-Year-Old

Photos by Gorditos de Corazon/Barcroft/Landov

A typical 9-month-old baby weighs between 17 and 20 pounds, and adds another pound by one year, according to the World Health Organization. But Juanita Valentina Hernandez, a 10-month-old in Colombia, is anything but typical. Born at only 6 pounds, she has already ballooned to a whopping 44 pounds — the weight of an average 5-year-old.

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“When she was 15 days old she was already looking chubby, because she was born very thin,” Juanita’s mother, Sandra Franco, told the Daily Mail. Franco says she has no idea what has caused the weight gain.

Photos by Gorditos de Corazon/Barcroft/Landov

“Until now I haven’t been able to treat her because I am unemployed and didn’t have the money,” Franco said. But the mom has now teamed up with doctors at the Colombian charity Gorditos de Corazon (translation: Chubby Hearts) to get to the bottom of the mysterious weight gain. Juanita is currently undergoing treatment in Bogota.

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Salvador Palacio, the director of Gorditos de Corazon, has been working to raise awareness and fight against infant obesity. He says he has seen three babies who weigh more than 40 pounds over the past year. In 2014, he helped two other Colombian babies – who weighed a combined 91 pounds – lose weight. “We hope with six to eight months using a special diet, the babies could be down to a normal weight,” Palacio told Barcroft at the time, and he was successful and stabilizing both babies weights. “Thousands of children in Colombia — and millions around the world — suffer with obesity. From Colombia we have formed an international alliance to help people who are overweight.”

Dr. Dominika Wittek, a pediatrician at Tribeca Pediatrics, says obesity in infants can lead to diabetes, increased cholesterol, and other problems that in the end could lead to high blood pressure, heart attack or stroke. “It’s also a big strain on the joints,” she says. “Babies that are that heavy have more body mass so it’s trickier to meet developmental milestones.”

Not all big babies are unhealthy, Wittek points out. “There are slim and heavy babies that are completely healthy,” she says. “But unusually high weight is a red flag that there could be other problems, like thyroid issues.”

If parents are concerned about their child’s weight, they should raise the issue with their pediatrician, who may refer the family to a specialist like an endocrinologist or nutritionist, Wittek says. “Don’t put your baby on a diet on your own,” she says. “Generally in pediatrics the approach that we take is to slow down the weight gain so they can grow into their weight, and improve the ratio of length to height, rather than pushing a baby to lose weight. But even that is something a parent should discuss with a doctor.” 

Franco, who now has the help of Gorditos de Corazon, has her own plea to other moms:  ”To all mothers that have babies like this, please take care of our children if we don’t want them to get sick.” 

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