Healthy Babies Come in All Sizes, Pediatrician Explains in Viral Video

Whether it’s a stranger in the checkout line pointing out “what a chunk” your toddler is or a pediatric checkup that leaves you fixating on low percentiles, size comparisons can feel like a constant part of parenthood. It’s easy to wonder: Is my baby too small? Too big? Are they healthy? Pediatrician and mom of four Meghan Martin, MD, wants you to know: healthy doesn’t have a single look.

In a now-viral video, Martin introduces her viewers to her adorable nephew, who she describes as “what us pediatricians would call ‘well nourished.’” She shares, “He’s almost 8 months old, he’s 22 pounds and he is healthy. He’s developing well, he’s trying to crawl, he’s the cutest thing on the planet.”

Still, she notes, “None of my children looked like this. They were all on the smaller side when they were a year. Most of them didn’t reach 20 pounds until they were 18 months to 2 years. They were all very small. He is not. Health looks different for everyone. This is healthy. My kids were healthy.”

Martin’s gentle reminder to parents: weight and percentiles are just one piece of the puzzle. “Healthy looks very different,” she explains. “I know a lot of people are focused on weight and how big they are and percentiles. But just know that there’s a wide variety of what is normal and what is healthy. And there’s a lot of genetics and a lot of other things that determine it. This can be healthy, and skinny babies can be healthy too. They’re all pretty cute—that’s what’s most important.”

In the caption, Martin elaborates that while growth percentiles are useful tools in pediatrics, they shouldn’t overshadow the bigger picture. “Are they tracking along a growth curve? Are they jumping up or falling off?” she writes. “Focus on the child rather than the numbers! Healthy looks different for different kids and focusing on numbers can create a lot of parental anxiety.”

Parents flooded the comments with gratitude and their own stories. “I needed this! My daughter is petite and I am always stressing about her feedings,” one parent wrote. Another shared, “To the pediatrician who made my tiny newborn daughter her own growth chart so we could just focus on her own curve and I didn’t have to panic looking at how far behind she was on the ‘normal’ one, thank you. You kept me sane and my daughter healthy.”

Others chimed in to share experiences across the size spectrum. “I had two chonkers and I have one string bean. I used to get comments about how chubby the first two were and now I get comments about how skinny the third is. Like relax, everyone is healthy,” one mom wrote.

A nutritionist added, “We gotta make health the focus and put weight in the same category as blood pressure, temperature, height, and other metrics that provide helpful information in certain circumstances when taken along with each other.” Another commenter noted, “Healthy looks different on adults too! This message fits across the lifespan.”

There’s plenty to worry about as a parent, but whether your baby is big, small or somewhere in between for their age, what matters most is that they’re growing, developing and loved. Still concerned? Delve deeper into baby percentiles and the science behind growth tracking.