Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Mar
18
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“If You Don’t Eat Fruit, Your Baby Won’t Be Fat.”
“If you don’t eat fruit, your baby won’t be fat.” – OB to mother worried about a large baby due to the family history of large babies, including both the mother and father weighing over 9 pounds.
There are 51 comments to this post.
this one is mine.
I went in for my second appointment with this guy*my first was a follow up ER visit* and so I was asking him questions that I had forgotten to ask him.. soo I asked him how he felt about larger babies, and he told me that 8lbs would be pretty big for someone like me.. I laughed and told him I didnt expect the baby to be under 9lbs. my mom had 3 9lb babies and is 4’11”*I am 5’1”* and that dh was 9.. he asked if our moms had GD, which they didnt, they just grew big babies.. he told me he would be watching me very closely, and that “if I dont eat fruit, the baby wont be fat”.. I was floored.. that is a major food group, and I was craving fruit SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad at that point!! anyways, 2 drs later I vaginally delivered a 9lb 7 oz face UP baby girl:D
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Jane Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 5:06 am (Quote)
Wow! Congrats on your baby girl and triple-congrats on searching for a doctor until you found one who would treat you with respect. 
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Elizabeth Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 7:24 am (Quote)
I swear, some medical professionals have WEIRD ideas. How the hell does a DOCTOR come up with fruit = fatter babies?!?!
And, for the record, I think our bodies tell us what we need. During my first trimester, I wanted FRUIT and RAW VEGGIES. And as the nausea started (whichw as never too horrible for me, luckily), I discovered that THOSE were the foods that made me feel better.
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adrienne Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 8:11 am (Quote)
my first midwife looked me over and based on my size told me I’d have a 6.5 lb baby. I’m not short, I’m 5’6 but at the time was 111 lb so very thin. I kinda loled at her remark though. my mom had 2 babies over 9 lb and her smallest was 7.5 lb so I figured I’d get at least that. I shocked my MW by having an 8 lb baby. and again the next time by having a 9.5 lb baby. too bad she wasn’t around for my 3rd and 4th when I hit 10 pounds then passed 11!
I’m sure it’s because of all the fruit I’m eating. there’s really no other explanation.
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Heather Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 12:48 pm (Quote)
Congrats on your birth despite idiot doctors! 
It’s funny, since my first baby was my lean one and I ate tons of fruit, because it was my major craving. My second was SO fat and huggable and I wasn’t particularly interested in fruit with her pregnancy.
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devil is in the details Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 1:05 pm (Quote)
“anyways, 2 drs later I vaginally delivered”
Anyways, you just totally rock! Recognized dumbass, avoided dumbass. TWICE!
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Gee. I eat fruit all the time and have 8 pound babies. You’d think the OB would have given information on having a healthy pregnancy, eating a well rounded diet, and doing some sort of exercise so that even if the woman had a huge baby she would be physically prepared to birth it.
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Chelsea Reply:
March 23rd, 2011 at 12:37 pm (Quote)
And I was eating tons of fruit and my biggest baby was 6 lb 3 oz…and well past my “due date” so definitely not low birth weight from being early.
Although I had a lot more fruit and veggies with my second and she is now a little pork chop, but she was a peensy thing at birth, so fruit had nothing to do with it. Mumma milk is what chubbed her up 
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shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! that is common sense…dont want the lady folk to use their brains!..
Gee. I eat fruit all the time and have 8 pound babies. You’d think the OB would have given information on having a healthy pregnancy, eating a well rounded diet, and doing some sort of exercise so that even if the woman had a huge baby she would be physically prepared to birth it.
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Good thing I ate a lot of fruit then. I’d have had a microbaby since I ate lots of fruit and had a full term 6 pound 15 ounce baby. If I hadn’t eaten that fruit, who knows, I might have had to spend time in NICU to reach the magic 5 pound mark
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I ate SO much melon during my pregnancy I thought I was going to birth a cantaloupe. I craved it and couldn’t get enough. Maybe it does make large babies — I had a 9 lb 12 oz’er. But I had a relatively quick and easy vaginal birth so it all turned out ok (and my son LOVES cantaloupe too!). Ha ha. I don’t really see the connection between fruit and large babies… As other say, show me the science…
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lol.. I love that unicorn council!!! they are so smart:D
This is exactly the reason that the Unicorn Council has been leaning on McDonalds to quit serving so much fruit on their menu and instead deep-fry everything and serve more carbohydrates smothered in fat. It’s really the only responsible thing to do.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 6:05 pm (Quote)
The Unicorn Council is trying to hog all the fruit to itself. That’s how they got to be so smart.
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That’s so dumb. I’ve never had a baby above 8 pounds, and I’ve eaten fruit, veggies, meat, whole grains, sometimes even chips, fries, cheeseburgers, ice cream…
Some people grow big babies. Big healthy babies, with no blood sugar problems involved. My sister’s MIL has had a couple babies over 12 pounds, an 8 pound baby would be “tiny” to her. She’s close to 6 feet tall, her hubby is around 6′ 4″ and both of them have really sturdy, muscular body types. Oh yeah and all their babies were born at home, so thankfully there were no doctors there to fuss at them about the scaaaaary big babies. Heck one of their kids was born so fast the midwife didn’t even make it!
OP, I’m glad you found a doctor who supported you and trusted you. Congrats on your little girl!
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Liz Chalmers had this to say,
Mar 18, 2011 @ 9:19 am (Quote)
Although the statement itself is very strangely phrased (it would be far better if it said “…would be less likely to be fat”) the overall sentiment behind it might have *some* validity. I worry about moms who drink fruit juice…that’s pure sugar straight into the veins. And I’m not convinced that eating lots and lots of fruit is ideal either, particularly given that modern agriculture has created fruit that is now far sweeter and bigger than it used to be.
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Jane Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 10:36 am (Quote)
Fruit juice is a concern because it’s pretty much liquid sugar. Actual fruit though tends to come with its own source of fiber and there’s a lot more digesting involved, so my understanding is that fruit itself doesn’t cause the same kinds of blood-sugar spikes that fruit juice does.
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And let’s not forget that a ‘fat’ baby isn’t necessarily hard to push out. It’s the bones that can get stuck, not squishy fat.
Who sit’s on the Unicorn Council, and how does one join?
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 6:06 pm (Quote)
I think you have to be very horny.
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I think the worst part of this comment is that he says the baby won’t be FAT. He doesn’t say BIG, or LARGE. He says FAT. Technically infants, by adult standards, would be considered obese because of their body composition, but that is healthy and beneficial for newborns. To use the term “fat” sort of implies that babies can have a “weight problem” from birth and even in utero. Which I think is really messed up. 
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Skyfire Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 9:15 pm (Quote)
This. I have a hard time believing in childhood obesity, and the younger the child the less I believe it. I believe the “obesity epidemic” has been manufactured to sell diet aids.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 6:10 pm (Quote)
I truly don’t think the doctor knows a difference. A macrosomic baby is at risk for obesity and type II diabetes, or so doctors are told, therefore, it’s a fat baby.
Never mind that baby fat generally melts off when the baby becomes an active toddler, so isn’t the same sort of fat.
Or that most “macrosomic” babies slide right out, if the mother is in a good birthing position and isn’t drugged to the gills and coached to death.
Or that BMI isn’t everything anyway.
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Never mind that baby fat generally melts off when the baby becomes an active toddler, so isn’t the same sort of fat.
yeah.. said child is now a very scrawny toddler that I am trying to fatten up!!! she is soooooo petite now!! lol… little booger:D
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I’m sorry, did the OB confuse the word BIG for FAT?
Big babies may not be fat at all!
I just had my first child, he was 9lbs, 8oz and 21 inches long. The only “fat” part on him is his cheeks. Other than that, he’s just big and thin! So go read a dictionary OB, LARGE does not mean FAT.
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When my mother was pregnant with me, she could only keep down Fruit…. and i was only 8.5 pounds…..i was the “heavy” baby (compaired to my brother, who was a pound less), but they said i was fine….I was pretty small, still am too Guess every excpeting Mother is different though…
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Add Your Comment.
First of all, fruit makes babies fat?
Second of all, 9 lbs is not a huge baby. Every one I know who does not have an induction has babies between 7 and 9 lbs.
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Jane Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 5:07 am Jane(Quote)
This is exactly the reason that the Unicorn Council has been leaning on McDonalds to quit serving so much fruit on their menu and instead deep-fry everything and serve more carbohydrates smothered in fat. It’s really the only responsible thing to do.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 5:45 pm Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
The Unicorn Council better watch it. I hear McDonald’s is test marketing a new sandwich.
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Robyn Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 5:42 am Robyn(Quote)
I can actually see where this makes a little bit of sense. Everything we eat is converted into sugar. This is what the baby actually feeds on. It’s part of why women who are diagnosed as gestationally diabetic tend to have larger babies; their blood sugar is higher, baby is getting more sugar, baby gets big.
Fruit is a natual source of sugar. Eating a *lot* of fruit would essentially be the same as eating a lot of other sugary foods.
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Abby Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 5:48 am Abby(Quote)
Sorry, couldn’t leave that last bit alone. “Fruit is a natual source of sugar. Eating a *lot* of fruit would essentially be the same as eating a lot of other sugary foods.”…. Well, if fruit sugars which have not been altered by pasteurization were processed by our bodies in the same way as refined sugars (which include those from fruit which have been pasteurized) that *might* be true.
However, I’ve never heard a more asinine thing spoken by a doc regarding prenatal nutrition (except maybe the whole, eat 80g of protein a day thing). Fresh fruit being consumed by a non diabetic, healthy individual actually levels out blood sugar… Oh, the benefits of Inulin!
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BeckyMomma Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 10:43 am BeckyMomma(Quote)
Yeah. There’s this cool thing they put in fruit these days called soluble fiber…maybe you’ve heard of it? Slows digestion of sugars…Oh, never mind.
Abby, why are you anti 80gms of protein? If I remember, a gm per lb of lean muscle mass is what pregnant women should be consuming. Am I off?
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Amelia Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 11:17 am Amelia(Quote)
Becky, the crazy-amounts-of-protein thing has never actually been studied; there’s no science to support eating that amount of protein. A healthy, balanced diet is going to provide enough protein without mamas going out of their way to add peanut butter to everything.
There’s more info here about one midwife’s take on the Brewer diet: http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2011/1/26/hypocrite-in-the-middle.html
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 6:01 pm Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
And while I’m here, let me take a few seconds to rant about Atkins and other ketogenic diets. Ketogenic diets have some merit in combatting seizure disorders – they were used as treatment for epilepsy by the Mayo Clinic before antiseizure drugs were invented, and while not successful 100% of the time, neither are drugs, so as a treatment and prevention technique for seizures they’re worth keeping in mind.
However, they are meant to be done under a doctor’s close supervision, not least because they pose a danger to the liver and kidneys. They are certainly not “perfectly natural and safe,” as somebody tried to convince me on Facebook, and they are not appropriate during pregnancy.
Pregnant women need to put on extra fat. The baby needs it for proper brain growth; the mother needs it to store energy for birth, and also to prepare her body for lactation. A body that thinks it is starving (which is what a body thinks when it experiences ketosis) will have problems in labour, and in establishing milk supply. Miscarriage is also a threat.
It’s time to stop treating carbs as the enemy.
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Mistie Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 1:07 am Mistie(Quote)
To continue on this note, remember, it’s not just the sugars from the fruits that we are consuming, it’s the whole food. Yes, when you take parts of food and consume large amounts of that food, it can effect you negatively, but when consuming the whole food, there is no threat to our health. Even people with diabetes need to watch their simple carbs (.e. white potatoes) more than fruits (peaches, nectarines, etc). We just need to remember to eat the whole food of everything we can and we will be fine. I eat whatever I want (pretty healthily anyway), I have 9-10+ pound babies all 22in or longer and never had a problem with any of them with their health except lactose intolerance. They are more likely to develop diabetes from the (white) rice cereal I fed them at 4 months (way too early) than for the [large amounts of] fruits I ate while pregnant with them.
Whole foods are the key to a balanced diet and good nutrition.
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Robyn Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 11:09 am Robyn(Quote)
You’re right in that I didn’t word that well. Our bodies *do* process fruit differently than other sources of sugar. However, eating a lot of fruit is still consuming a lot of sugar.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 5:53 pm Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
Yeah? So what? Unless the person is restricted from eating anything with sugar in it due to severe diabetes, and brushes her teeth every day to avoid placque buildup and tooth decay, who cares?
Sugar is not evil.
Heck, Weight Watchers considers fruits and vegetables to be zero-point foods, from what friends have told me. Fruit can’t be all that fattening.
If we weren’t evolutionarily designed to crave carbs, we wouldn’t crave them or eat them. It’s when our diets get seriously unbalanced and/or rely heavily on processed, artificially flavoured/coloured/preserved food that we run into trouble.
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Heather Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 12:45 pm Heather(Quote)
Hmm… then why was my baby when I had gestational diabetes, born two weeks and a day later than her sister, with whom I ate tons of fruit because it was an allowable sugar with diabetes that I CRAVED like CRAZY… the exact same size as said little sister? (8lbs, 7oz)
Your body grows babies the size that they’re supposed to grow to, as long as you don’t do stupid things like smoke or participate in other dangerous activities such as dieting or taking drugs or medications that cause low birth weight.
This whole anti-fruit thing comes from the stupid low carb fad diets that don’t understand how carbs actually work in the body and is obsessed with demonizing anything containing them, when that actually increases your overall risk of health problems. It has no basis in biology.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
March 19th, 2011 at 5:46 pm Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU…
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Heather Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 9:09 pm Heather(Quote)
I take it this is one of your pet peeves, too? LOL
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