19.2 pound baby draws onlookers
KISARAN, Indonesia — Indonesia's heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to an Indonesian hospital where the boy named Akbar — or the Great in Arabic — came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds.
Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute Caesarean delivery that was complicated because of his unusual weight and size, Dr. Binsar Sitanggang said.
"I'm very happy that my baby and his mother are in good health," father Muhammad Hasanuddin said today. "I hope I can afford to feed the baby enough, because he needs more milk than other babies."
Crowds pushed to get a peek of the extraordinary Indonesian boy, who measured nearly 24 inches when he was born Monday at the Abdul Manan hospital in the northern town of Kisaran on the strictly Islamic island of Sumatra.
"This is fantastic," said Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village as she peered through a window with around a hundred others. "This is the biggest baby I have ever seen. He looks very well and is cute."
The baby's extreme weight was the result of excessive glucose from his mother during pregnancy, Dr. Sitanggang said.
"He is greedy and has a strong appetite, nursing almost nonstop," the doctor said.
The boy was the third child of Hasanuddin, 50, and mother Ani, 41, who like many Indonesian goes by a single name. His two "little" brothers weighed 11.6 pounds and 9.9 pounds at birth.
The former Indonesian record holder was a 14.7-pound baby boy born on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, in 2007.
Guinness World Records cites the heaviest baby as being born in the U.S. in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds. However, the baby died 11 hours after birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.
