Mum delivers 'pumpkin baby' weighing a huge 14lb 15oz
Watch: Mother shows off third-biggest newborn baby in UK
A mum has given birth to a whopping 14lb 15oz baby - believed to be the third biggest ever born in the UK.
Cherral Mitchell, 31, from Thame, Oxfordshire, needed the help of two midwives to deliver baby Alpha, who left hospital staff shocked when he weighed in at more than a stone shortly after birth.
The infant has since been given the nicknames 'Baby Hippo' and 'Butter Bean' due to his unusually large size.
But it wasn't just his weight that surprised the new mum, but the fact that he was conceived with husband Tyson, 35, an electrical engineer, despite Mitchell having a contraceptive coil fitted.
"We didn't think he was going to be that big," Mrs Mitchell said of Alpha's size at birth.
"Everyone kept laughing when his head came out. My husband Tyson was like, 'oh my God he's chunky'."
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Mrs Mitchell explained how two midwives had to assist her to push the newborn out.
"There were two nurses pulling - one was trying to push him down to get him out," she said.
"The nurses said it had to be the biggest baby and were on their phones googling. He’s a bit of a pumpkin baby with it being so close to Halloween."
Alpha, who was born at 38 weeks on Thursday, is believed to be the UK's third-biggest baby with the current record holder being 15lb 8oz Guy Carr, born in 1992.
The second biggest is 15lb 7oz George King, who was born in Gloucester in 2013.
Doctors believe Alpha's size could be due to the fact he was consuming his mum's sugary fluids while in the womb.
"They think that because I was diagnosed quite late with gestational diabetes, Alpha was in amniotic fluid that was sweeter," Mrs Mitchell, a stay-at-home-mum, explains.
"So he was drinking a lot and peeing a lot and getting a high intake of sugar."
Watch: Baby born weighing the same as a chocolate bar
At 37 weeks Alpha was estimated to be 11lb 1oz in a scan, but he grew by three pounds before he was born a week later via a caesarian section at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
"My stomach was big but not that massive so I don't know where he was hiding," she continues.
"I keep saying I gave birth to a baby butter bean. My uncle Jason calls him a baby hippo."
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Mrs Mitchell already has a son, Lyon, three, and daughters Rogue-Angel, four, and Twyla Bay, 10 months - but said that Alpha is the biggest by a long shot.
"My other children were all normal sized," she says.
Alpha is currently in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU), where he's being monitored by neonatal nurses but is described as being "on the mend".
Alpha isn’t the only baby to join the super-size list recently.
Last year, Emma Fearon, 34, welcomed Atticus, who arrived on 24 May weighing 11lb 6oz - the same as a bowling ball.
Incredibly, she required no stitches following the birth, and only had gas and air as pain relief.
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And back in 2019 midwives and doctors at North Middlesex University Hospital helped deliver one of the heaviest babies ever reported to be born naturally in England.
Baby Anila weighed 12lb 6oz and mum Armonita did not use any painkillers.
Meanwhile also in 2019 a mum dubbed her child a “mini Sumo wrestler” after she was born weighing 12.9lbs (5.88kg).
Remi Frances Millar shocked her family when she tipped the scales at almost 13lbs, and her birth weight was even more surprising considering she wasn’t even born at full term.
According to data collected from the NHS, the average weight of a baby girl is 7.27lbs. For boys, it is 7.49lbs.
Additional reporting SWNS.
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