Friday · February 06 2004
Can we stop this practice of sharing newborn length? Aren't all babies like 21 inches? Unless you give birth to a 3 foot giant, don't mention it. Gender and name? Obviously. Weight is okay too for the rest of us. We need something to talk about. 12 pounds? Holy hell, that's bigger than my bowling ball.
I disagree completely. The ratio is important. Babies can be "tall" and on the skinny side or short and chubby... if I tell you about a guy who weighs 200 pounds but neglect to tell you he's 6'8" then your mental image of him will be entirely off-mark.
By the way, have you ever squeezed 21 inches of human flesh from your loins (or *will* you ever)? ;) Don't you think it might feel like more than 17 inches? Just a thought.
You're missing the point of what I'm saying. The weight is (sorta) interesting because there's some variance in it and that's the only thing people pay attention to on baby reports. You hear 11lbs, you think "oh my God, what a huge baby." You hear 5lbs, you assume the baby was born early or something like that.
The length in inches on a full term baby never seems to vary much. It seems like it's included out of obligation because it's a piece of data.
I'd rather hear about hair, facial expression, beautiful eyes, how much he/she cries. Length? I make no mental images of babies from the given length.
Totally agree, Jay. Completely irrellevant stat. When you hear that a baby is 4 lbs, it can be an indication of the baby's health or level of "doneness." If you hear that the baby is only 17 inches, it doesn't mean the baby is destined to be a midget. In fact, it doesn't really mean anything at all...not even that the kid will end up being short or tall. We might as well measure a baby's shoe size while we're at it.