A Russian woman has given birth to a hefty little girl who weighs 17 pounds, one ounce — more than twice the average weight of a newborn.

Tatiana Khalina, 42, delivered the baby by caesarean section at a clinic in a small town in the Altai region in southern Siberia, a nurse said Thursday.

A nurse feeds newly born Nadia in Barnaul Clinical hospital, a city in Siberian region of Altai.
(The Associated Press)

The girl, named Nadia, joins 11 siblings, eight sisters and three brothers.

All the mother's previous babies weighed more than 11 pounds but she was shocked to hear the weight of the latest one, Khalina told Reuters.

"I ate everything. We don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," Khalina told reporters.

Nadia was born on Sept. 17 in a smooth delivery, nurse Svetlana Gildeyeva said.

She is developing normally, according to a doctor at the hospital in the larger city of Barnaul where she and her mother were transferred.

The baby weighs more than twice the average for newborns, which is about seven pounds, according to the World Health Organization.

But Nadia is far from being the heaviest baby ever born. The Guinness World Records book lists the heaviest baby ever born as 23 pounds, 12 ounces in 1879. The baby died hours after birth.

The healthiest surviving baby, according to the book, was born in 1955 in Italy and weighed 22 pounds, eight ounces.

With files from the Associated Press