News

A woman in the Russian town of Khabarovsk, in the extreme west of Russia, has given birth to a baby weighing 15.9lbs and measuring 67 centimetres in length, local medical sources have confirmed.

"It is the first time such a big baby has been born in Khabarovsk. At birth, the baby boy weighed in at exactly 15.9 lbs and measured 67 centimetres. The mother, who is 33 and originally from the town of Khabarovsk, had to give birth by caesarean section. The child was born healthy," a spokesperson from the town''s maternity hospital revealed to local news agency RIA-Novosti.

The mother, Vera Ovchinnikova, an accountant, already has another daughter, 14 years of age, who weighed a more modest 8.6 lbs at birth.

Her second child has broken all records in the town of Khabarovsk for both his weight and length. The previous record was set in February 2008 when a baby was born weighing 13.4 lbs and measuring 63 centimetres.

As a general rule, a healthy child is born weighing between 6.6 and 7.7 lbs; babies born weighing 11lbs are considered "big" while those that weigh in any higher are classed as "giant". According to statistics, giant babies are a rare phenomenon with only 1 in every 1,500 being classed as such.