A newborn baby that weighed the biggest a doctor had ever delivered is already in clothes that fit a six-to-nine-month-old. Finnley was 14lbs 1oz when he was born, nearly double that of the average weight of a newborn.
Cary Patonai was only 38 weeks pregnant when her water broke on October 4, 2021. Cary had been scheduled for a C-section because the doctors had already predicted that the baby would weigh 13.8 lbs.
But when her water broke at a doctor’s appointment, they bumped the surgery up a day and she and her husband, Tim, welcomed newborn baby Finnley, who clocked in at a massive 14lbs., 1oz. — the biggest that Cary’s doctor has ever delivered in 27 years of practice.
The average weight of a newborn is around 7.5 lbs., though between 5.5 lbs. and 10 lbs. is considered normal.
Cary and Tim had already welcomed two boys — ten-year-old Devlen and two-year-old Everett — via C-section, and they’d each been on the larger side, weighing 8.2 lbs. and 11.1 lbs.
But both were small compared to little brother Finnley, whom Cary said ‘took the lead.’
Cary said: “He was so big plus I had almost double the amniotic fluid, so to say I had a big baby belly and that I was absolutely completely uncomfortable isn’t enough.”
She had been scheduled in for a C-section but her surgery was moved forward when her waters broke at a doctor’s appointment, ironically, as she stood on the scales to be weighed.
Cary added: “Finnley was a little celebrity at the hospital. Nurses and doctors were non-stop talking about him,’ the mother-of-three added. ‘He is quite tall too at 23.75 inches.”
“As soon as they pulled him out, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s huge!’” she added.
“Everybody was freaking out, like, ‘I’ve never seen a baby that big, I can’t believe it’. So perfect and round in every way. He’s definitely my squishy little honey bear.”
Finnley is already making life interesting for the family. Finnley is already a size two, so they had to special order his size as Banner Thunderbird Medical Center only offered diapers in sizes newborn to one.
Cary also said how the family had to rush out for more baby clothes in size six to nine months as “everything we had was entirely too small”.
The beaming mum said Finnley became “a little celebrity at the hospital” and “nurses and doctors were non-stop talking about him”.
“Everything we had was entirely too small,’ said Cary. Finnley also had to spend eight days in the NICU.
“There was one point in the NICU that he was with one of four babies, and his weight was their three total altogether, so we were laughing at that,’ Cary said.
Cary and Tim can’t stop staring at their sweet bundle of joy.
“Our family is finally complete,” Cary said. “He’s absolutely perfect.”
“He is such a good sweet baby. I am so grateful everything ended on such a great positive side,” she added.
The Guinness World record for the heaviest baby to survive infancy belongs to a boy weighing 22 pounds, 8 ounces, who was born in Aversa, Italy, in 1955. In 2019, a New York woman named Joy Buckley gave birth to a daughter who weighed 15 pounds, 5 ounces.
