Giant baby draws spectators to Indonesian hospital

[September 26, 2009]  KISARAN, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesia's heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to a hospital where the boy named Akbar - or the Great in Arabic - came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds (8.7 kilograms).

Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute cesarean 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 Friday. "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 boy, who measured nearly 24 inches (62 centimeters) when he was born Monday, at the Abdul Manan hospital in the northern town of Kisaran on the island of Sumatra.

"This is fantastic," Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village, said as she peered through a window with about a hundred other people. "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 Indonesians goes by a single name. His two "little" brothers weighed 11.6 pounds (5.3 kilograms) and 9.9 pounds (4.5 kilograms) at birth.

The former Indonesian record holder was a 14.7-pound (6.7-kilogram) 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 (10.4 kilograms). However, it died 11 hours after birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound (10.2-kilogram) babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.

---

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta.

[Associated Press; By DENNY SITOHAN]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.