Big Baby: Brit Mum Has Heaviest Born In Spain

A British woman has given birth to the biggest ever baby born naturally in Spain, a hospital has said.

Maxime Marin, 40, did not even need an epidural - a painkiller delivered into the spine during childbirth.

The baby girl called Maria Lorena Marin weighed 13lb 7oz (6.095kg) which is about twice the size of an average baby.

Hospital Marina Salud in the Mediterranean city of Denia said she was in "perfect health" following the straightforward delivery.

Ms Marin said she expected the baby, born after 41 weeks, to be "big but not that big" as her three older children each weighed more than 9lb 14oz (4.480kg) at birth.

She brushed off the five-hour labour as "simple", while the newborn's Colombian father, Jaime Marin, said everything went well.

Dr Javier Rius, head of gynaecology at the hospital, said in his 40 years of practice he had never known a baby born naturally to weigh so much.

Earlier this year, a Californian woman gave birth to a child weighing even more than Maria.

Jayden Sigler was 13lb 14oz (6.293kg) when he was delivered by Caesarean section.

And George King became one of the heaviest babies born naturally in England when he was delivered earlier this year weighing 15lb 7oz (7.002kg).

Almost two-thirds of babies born in England and Wales in 2010 weighed between 6lb 9oz (2.976kg) and 8lb 13oz (3.997kg), according to the Office for National Statistics.

Of the 700,000 children born during that year, more than 460,000 were in this range.

The heaviest baby ever born weighed 23lb 12oz (10.773kg) in Canada in 1879, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

But the baby, whose mother Anna Bates had giantism - a condition characterised by excessive growth and height significantly above average, died 11 hours later.

In 1955 a baby boy weighing 22lbs 8oz (10.206kg) was born to Carmelina Fedele in Aversa, Italy.