‘Obese’ ‘sumo’ babies, morality and maternal identity

Abstract

Synopsis Historically, a big baby was seen as symbolising good health and care: the ‘bonny bouncing baby’. In the context of the ‘obesity epidemic’ and increasing prevalence of diabetes, in the UK large babies have been re-conceptualised as ‘obese’ ‘sumo babies’, prone to chronic disease throughout their lives. Data from a qualitative longitudinal study of 30 women with co-existing ‘maternal obesity’ (BMI ≥ 30) and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus or Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in pregnancy, conditions which carry a high risk of ‘foetal macrosomia’ or ‘big baby syndrome’, and an analysis of postings to ‘pregnancy’ Internet fora, show how having a high birthweight baby at this socio-historical juncture is seen as a source of stigma, with potential to jeopardise a woman's identity as a ‘good mother’. Drawing on the sociology of accounts, I discuss various ways in which women rhetorically defended themselves against the threat to a moral maternal identity that having a big baby posed. Furthermore, I assert that it is women from lower socio-economic status groups who may be differentially more likely to experience the stigma associated with having a ‘sumo baby’.