Woman gives birth to 17-pound baby

A Siberian woman who gave birth to her 12th child - doing more than her fair share to stem Russia's population decline - was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 7.75 kg (17.1 lb).

Nadia was delivered by caesarean section in the local maternity hospital in the Altai region on September 17, joining eight sisters and three brothers.



"We were all simply in shock," said Nadia's mother, Tatyana Barabanova, 43. "What did the father say? He couldn't say a thing - he just stood there blinking."

"I ate everything, we don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," she said, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 5 kg.

The Guinness World Records lists a 10.2 kg baby boy born in Italy in 1955, and a 10.8 kg baby boy who was born in the United States in 1879 but died 11 hours later.