AP Features, September 27th, 2007
A small Russian city has welcomed a large new citizen: a 7.75-kilogram (17 pound, 1 ounce) baby whose mother had already delivered 11 other children.
Tatiana Khalina, 42, delivered the girl by Caesarean section at a maternity clinic in Aleisk, a town of 30,000 people in the Altai region in southern Siberia, a nurse at the clinic said Thursday.
Some Russian media reports said it was the heaviest baby on record, but that could not be confirmed.
Nurse Svetlana Gildeyeva said the Sept. 17 birth went smoothly, and mother and the child were fine. She said the baby, Nadezhda, was transferred from the small clinic to a maternity hospital in Barnaul, a larger city.
The girl developing normally, said Irina Kurdeka, a doctor at the Barnaul hospital.
The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets quoted the local social services chief, Marina Alistratova, as saying the family had modest means. She said Khalina's husband was on contract with a local military unit.
"We have presented them with a good washing machine, a food package and a card," Alistratova told the newspaper. "We will keep supporting them in the future."
An average weight for newborn babies is around 3.2 kilograms (7 pounds, 1 ounce), according to international statistics.
The Guinness Book of Records says the heaviest baby ever was born in the United States in 1879. It weighed 10.4 kilograms (23 pounds, 12 ounces) and died 11 hours after birth. The book also listed 10.2-kilogram (22 pounds, 8 ounces) babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.
