Brangelina baby delivered by caesarean

LOS ANGELES - The African-born daughter of Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt was delivered by Caesarean section in a weekend surgery and birth that "went flawlessly," Jolie's doctor said today.

Details of the birth, which occurred on Saturday at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in the Namibian town of Swakopmund, were disclosed in a statement the couple furnished exclusively to People magazine.

Pitt's publicist, Cindy Guagenti, later confirmed the magazine's report.

The infant, named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, weighed 3.18kg at birth and was described as healthy, though a surgical delivery was necessary because the baby was in a potentially risky feet-first breech position in the womb.

"Angelina underwent a scheduled Caesarean due to breech presentation," said Dr Jason Rothbart, the couple's Los Angeles-based obstetrician, who oversaw the delivery.

"Brad was with Angelina in the operating room the entire time and cut the umbilical cord of his daughter. The surgery and birth went flawlessly," he said.

Rothbart added that the doctors, nurses and other staff who assisted him were "amazing," and he called the delivery "a team effort."

"We would like to deeply thank the staff of the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital for all their kindness and commitment in assuring the successful birth of our daughter," Jolie, 30, and Pitt, 42, said in a joint statement.

The infant Shiloh joins their two adopted children, Cambodian-born son Maddox, 4, and daughter, Zahara, an Ethiopian native who is about 15 months old, in a blended celebrity clan recently labeled "the World's Most Beautiful Family" by People magazine.

But so far, no pictures of the family's latest addition have emerged. Photographers from all over the world have flocked to the southern African nation in hopes of capturing the first images of the newborn which are expected to be worth millions of dollars.

Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role in the 1999 movie Girl, Interrupted, and serves as a goodwill ambassador for UN High Commissioner for Refugees, took a shine to Namibia during production on the 2003 film Beyond Borders.

Jolie and Pitt became acquainted in 2004 while working together on the film Mr and Mrs Smith, a dark comedy in which they co-starred as a couple of assassins whose marriage gets rocky when they're assigned to kill each other.

Rumours of an affair between the twice-divorced Jolie and Pitt heated up after the actor and his ex-wife, former Friends star Jennifer Aniston, split up in January 2005.

While their relationship quickly became one of Hollywood's most talked-about open secrets, Pitt and Jolie only confirmed their romance about five months ago, when they announced she was pregnant with his child.

- REUTERS