World's tallest man becomes world's tallest dad

The world's tallest man, China's Bao Xishun, became the world's tallest father this week with the birth of his first child, a boy whose initial height seems a compromise between his gigantic dad and average-sized mum.

Bao's son measured 22 inches long at birth, the senior doctor at Zunhua Hospital in Hebei province said. His son weighed 4.2 kilograms at birth, a touch heavier than average.

Although slightly taller than average for newborn children, Bao's boy came up well short of the 29.5 inches claimed as a record birth length last year, also in China.



"Bao is quite happy. The baby is healthy and a normal size," the hospital's senior doctor Zhang said.

Bao, a 7-foot-9-inch herdsman from Inner Mongolia, last year married Xia Shujuan, a pygmy by contrast at 5-foot-6 inches.

"I hope he or she can be about 2 meters tall," Bao, 57, said last year about his wishes for a child. "Then he or she can play basketball."