28-kilo baby baffles doctors
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Like any other 10-monthold, Luis Manuel Gonzales babbles and touches anything within reach.
But he stands out in a stunning and perhaps lifethreatening way: he weighs 28 kilos.
He might need medical treatment costing a fortune, but his father earns just a little over $200 a month.
And doctors do not yet know why young Luis Manuel is so huge.
Mexico leads the world in childhood obesity and diabetes, and Gonzales is an extreme example of this unwelcome distinction.
At birth he weighed 3.5 kilos, about the same as his brother Mario, who is almost three but is now dwarfed by his baby brother.
At two months of age, Luis weighed 10 kilos. Over the next eight months he gained a staggering 18 kilos.
“I thought it was because I had good breast milk,” said his mother, 24-year-old Isabel Pantoja, speaking in the unpainted cement home where the family lives in Tecoman, in the Pacific coast state of Colima.
His parents created a Facebook page and opened a bank account for people to donate money for Luis Manuel’s medical care.
They take turns pushing him to the hospital in a decrepit stroller for daily blood tests.
It hurts to watch the nurses search among the rolls of fat on his arms for a vein, said his father, Mario Gonzales. The parents got the shock of their life when a pediatrician told them the boy might need hormone injections that cost $555 each.
And despite lots of study and examination, no one really knows what is wrong with this baby boy.
One of the main hypotheses is that he could have a disease called Prader-Willi Syndrome, a genetic condition in which children have an insatiable appetite and weak muscle tone, although this boy does not eat voraciously or spend the day demanding food.