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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Siberian baby tops 17 lbs.


Newly born Nadezhda Khalina gets weighed on Wednesday.S
 (The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

MOSCOW – A small Russian city just got a really big addition: a 17-pound, 1-ounce, baby whose mother had already delivered 11 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.

The 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 was feeling well and developing normally, according to the 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 military unit.

An average weight for newborn babies is about 7 pounds, 1 ounce, according to international statistics. The Guinness Book of World Records says the heaviest baby ever was born in the United States in 1879. It weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces and died 11 hours after birth. Guinness says the heaviest surviving baby was born in 1955 in Italy, weighing in at 22 pounds, 8 ounces.