Meet Frank the Tank, our 11lbs 10oz arrival (From Echo)

Meet Frank the Tank, our 11lbs 10oz arrival

12:00pm Saturday 11th February 2012 in Basildon By Lucy Kirby

ONE of the biggest babies ever to be delivered at Basildon Hospital has been nicknamed “Frank the Tank” by his parents.

Frankie Hughes, who tipped the scales at 11lbs 10oz, had to be delivered by Caesarean section two weeks early as doctors were concerned about his mum carrying him full term.

Frankie is the first child for Emma and Erik Hughes.

Emma, 35, joked she was glad it wasn’t a natural birth.

She said: “I’m really glad it was a C-section. I think it would have smarted a bit otherwise!

“The doctors have no idea why he is so big, they asked me what I’d been eating, and tested me for diabetes, but that came back negative.

“I had been taking pregnancy plus vitamin tablets, so maybe that’s what it was.”

Dad Erik, 40, caught the birth on camera, and captured the staff’s amazement when baby Frankie arrived.

He said: “The surgeon said ‘wow, he’s a toddler’. Midwives were coming from all over the hospital to have a look at him. No one could believe how big he is. He’s a whopper and already has the nickname Frank the Tank.

“The hospital called and said he was the biggest born there.”

Erik also weighed in quite heavy when he was born, at 10lbs 8oz, but Emma was a normal 7lb 1oz and they’re both under 6ft in height.

Frankie is doing well and is back home in Edmund Road, Chafford Hundred.

Two weeks before he was born, on February 3, doctors referred Emma to specialists at Kings College Hospital in London, as they were so concerned about the size of the baby.

Erik said: “It was worrying, but they got a top specialist to look at Emma and she said he was just a big, fat, healthy baby, so it was a relief.”

Speaking about baby Frankie, Basildon Hospital matron Sue Grace said: “It’s difficult to say if he was the biggest baby that Basildon Hospital has ever known, but he certainly was well above average.”

The day after Frankie was born, a woman in China delivered a son weighing 15lb 7oz, thought to be the largest newborn on record in the country.

The biggest baby born in Britain in the past 20 years was a boy weighing in at 13lb 11oz in October last year.