This bundle of joy must be bringing an extra helping of happiness: a couple in Texas are the proud parents of 16-pound, 1-ounce, 2-foot-long JaMichael Brown.
At 9:05 Friday morning, Janet Johnson and Michael Brown welcomed their son at Longview's Good Shepherd Medical Center. JaMichael, who was quickly nicknamed "the Moose," is the largest child ever born in the hospital—and possibly the state.
So exactly how big is a 16-pound baby? Let's put it this way: The average newborn is about seven-and-a-half pounds. The Brown baby's weight is just about equivalent to that of a six-month-old.
In a video for the "Today" show, JaMichael's parents said they had been told by doctors to expect a big baby, maybe 12 or 13 pounds, before the scheduled Cesarean birth. The 39-year-old mother suffered from gestational diabestes, which can result in or indicate bigger birth weights. Exactly how much bigger was the huge surprise.
As large as JaMichael is, there have been heftier newborns. The heaviest baby, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was born in Ohio in 1879 and weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces.
More recently, a newborn nicknamed "giant baby" (born 2005 in Brazil) weighed in at 17 pounds. (The baby was delivered by C-section to the 38-year-old mother, who was also diabetic.)
But a bruiser of a baby born in Indonesia in 2009 tipped the scales at 19.2 pounds—setting a record for the country and capturing global attention on the Web. We sure hope the record stands for a long time.
You can see more about JaMichael Brown's birth below.