Doctors in Moscow are congratulating themselves on the birth of a baby to a woman whose severe obesity would normally preclude conception, a newspaper says.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda said the birth was personally overseen by Moscow's chief gynaecologist due to the weight of the 34-year-old first-time Mum: 250 kilograms, or - as the newspaper helpfully put it - "a good quarter of a tonne!"
The mother, identified only as Nonna M, gave birth to a healthy boy weighing in at a modest two kilograms after a five-hour labour that was artificially induced.
"It's really a striking case," said Irina Osadcheva, the deputy head of Moscow's Maternity Clinic Number 8, where the birth took place.
"The thing is that as a rule, women over 150 kilograms have such severe hormonal irregularities they simply can't get pregnant," she explained.
The story may be of comfort to Russian authorities concerned at a demographic collapse in the world's largest country, where the population is falling by about a million a year.
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