There are a million things you could or should say when you see a new baby. ‘Oooh, isn’t he lovely!’ ‘Look at his teeny little nose and his weeny little hands!’ ‘Doesn’t he look like you!’

But even a brief glance at George Joseph King inspires just one burning, eye-watering, leg-crossing question (particularly when you’re eight-and-a-bit months pregnant yourself): ‘Oh. My. God. How much did it hurt?’

Because gorgeous George, born on February 11 and now six-and-a-half weeks old, weighed a staggering 15lb 7oz (more than double the average newborn weight of 7lb 8oz) when he was born naturally at Gloucester Royal Infirmary, two weeks past his due date.

Yes, I did say ‘naturally’.

No Caesarean section. Nothing, in fact, for hours and hours and hours of what must surely have been agonising labour. Only a bit of gas and air and then a last-minute epidural to help his mother, Jade, during an almighty struggle at the 11th hour when his impressive shoulders became stuck, squashing the umbilical cord and his chest flat.

But, according to 21-year-old Jade, who worked in a handbag shop before her baby came along, while the birth was horrifically traumatic — particularly when poor George got stuck — the pain really wasn’t so bad.

‘To be honest, I don’t remember it so much. It came and went, I remember a lot of pressure — but you just get on with it, don’t you?’

Indeed.

George is only Britain’s second biggest baby (the heaviest baby ever born in the UK was 15lb 8oz Guy Carr, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in 1992) but according to Jade’s very proud dad Darren Packer, George is one of the biggest born by natural means — ‘a much bigger achievement than a Caesarean!’

‘It wasn’t very dignified,’ says Jade. ‘I vaguely remember having my legs up near my head and loads of people trying to pull and push him out. There were about 20 people in the room all helping and rushing about.’

But the most astonishing thing was that George’s gargantuan size was such a shock to everyone.

Somehow, and God only knows why, nobody — not Jade, not her 21-year-old boyfriend Ryan King, not the midwives, her GP or obstetrician — noticed that Jade, who was only 6lb 2oz when she was born, was expecting a baby the size of a toddler with a head of hair that would make Wayne Rooney swoon.

But then this is a baby who has been confounding his parent’s expectations since conception. George, you see, wasn’t planned.

‘He was a surprise — a big surprise, as it turned out,’ says Jade. Young as they are, Jade and Ryan hadn’t planned to have children for a few years yet. But once they knew George was on his way, they threw themselves into becoming parents with gusto.

‘We knew he was a boy and had a name ready. I’d always wanted a big family — maybe three or four children — but not any more.’

Jade’s birth plan had included a water birth (‘my cousin had one and said it was very calming’) and minimum medical intervention.

And she’d watched One Born Every Minute — the Channel 4 documentary filmed in a maternity ward — to ‘be a bit prepared’.

‘They’d all be screaming their heads off and I’d think, “Oh come on, it can’t be that bad!” ’

Little did she know.

Even when she had a worrying bleed in her 32nd week of pregnancy and underwent various checks, nobody spotted anything wrong. At 36 weeks, her midwife apparently noticed she was showing ‘a little big — maybe a 10lb baby’ and referred her to a doctor.

He, in turn, simply measured her tummy with a tape measure and said her baby might be a bit on the large side — ‘maybe eight and a half pounds’. Not once was she given a scan to check all was well with the baby. Meanwhile, gorgeous George grew. And grew. And grew.

‘My absolute favourite food is lasagne, but I really wasn’t eating for two,’ says Jade. ‘I never really monitored my weight (I’m not a great one for scales) and neither did the midwife.

‘Towards the end, I could only manage a couple of mouthfuls before I was full — George was taking up all the space. As soon as he was out I was back into my pre-pregnancy clothes.’ But didn’t she feel vast? Looking at George and my own pretty gigantic bump, I just don’t see how he could possibly fit in there. ‘I didn’t realise how big I was. But looking back, I was enormous. Much bigger than other people.’

Eventually, two weeks overdue and, judging by her photos, the size of a small house, she was induced.

All went normally (‘though the screams were terrible,’ chips in Jade’s mum, who was there alongside Ryan for the birth. ‘I think the whole hospital must have thought somebody was being murdered’) until the head came out, pulled along the birth canal by a ventouse suction cup (‘he looked very Star Trekky with a pointy head for a while’).

And then he got stuck and everything descended into panic. Poor George was wedged there for five minutes; his chest was being crushed and he was slowly being starved of oxygen.

When the medical staff finally got him out, he was blue and lifeless. After a second or two on Jade’s chest while they cut the cord — ‘he was so heavy but I could tell he wasn’t breathing’ — he was whisked away to a table in the corner by a team of doctors who performed CPR for 20 minutes on his chest.

‘Finally, just as the head doctor stepped across to tell us they could do nothing more, one of the others still working on him, who refused to give up, found a very, very faint heartbeat.’

Next came four horribly hairy weeks in intensive care. First in Gloucester and then at the specialist baby unit at St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol, where he stabilised and began to make good progress. Jade, meanwhile, recovered remarkably well from her ordeal — ‘they never told me how many stitches I needed, but I was discharged the same day and in Tesco the day after, though it was all very tender for a while.’

And then, at last, just under two weeks ago — after endless checks, tests and an MRI scan revealed no permanent damage — George came home. ‘I never, ever thought the day would come. It was amazing. I’m really proud of him.’

But it turns out having Britain’s second largest baby brings a few disadvantages. For starters, 2ft 2in George outgrew his entire and extensive baby wardrobe while he was still snug as a bug in Jade’s womb. ‘Nothing we’d bought fits him. They all look absolutely tiny next to him. I tried a couple and I couldn’t even pull them up his leg.’

His brand new Moses basket is unused — ‘he already touches both ends, so he’s in a travel cot in our bedroom’. Jade has also missed out on breastfeeding (‘he was on a drip for the first week, so that was the end of that’) and that lovely, teeny new baby stage that makes everyone go so soppy.

‘No one stops to coo or ask how old he is, because he looks about six months old,’ says Jade, a bit sadly. But they should, because George — who now weighs 16lb 12.5oz — really is gorgeous. His hair is so thick and curly it puts my own 20-month-old son’s straggly locks to shame.

His cheeks are the chubbiest you’ll ever see. His fingers are fat little triangles. Everything about him is soft and dimpled and smells blissfully of baby. Even his ear lobes are fat.

But much to Jade and Ryan’s eternal relief, he is also bright and alert and busy watching everything that’s going on.

‘We’ve got a lot of check-ups in the future to go through. It all comes down to his milestones — when he starts to crawl, smile and sit — but he’s already holding his head up.

‘He’s such a battler — such a strong little boy. I love him more than anything and I always will.’

And his weight — is it a worry for the future?

‘If he keeps gaining weight, it’s not good for him, but the doctors all say he should steady out and end up normal size — we just have to keep a close eye on him.’

Jade — fresh as a daisy six weeks after her ordeal — is a lovely young woman; clearly a very natural mother and amazingly sanguine about the terrible ordeal she and George went through. But there is no doubt that someone should have noticed that her pregnancy was a little unusual.

‘If they had even an inkling he was going to be so big, they should have monitored me a bit more closely,’ she says. ‘The daft thing is, the amount it would have cost the NHS for a growth scan, or even a Caesarean, is a fraction of what it cost for his recovery in intensive care.’

Today, more and more large babies are born each year in the UK — some due to the mother suffering gestational diabetes (which causes the baby to grow too quickly in the latter few weeks of pregnancy), others due to maternal obesity.

As far as she knows, Jade didn’t have gestational diabetes and she wasn’t particularly overweight.

‘There are various genetics professors, consultants and doctors all investigating it — I had to give lots of blood at the hospital in Bristol. It could take months, or they may never find out,’ she says.

Until they get to the bottom of it, she won’t risk another baby in a hurry — ‘not for quite a few years’. Nor is she, as we both cross our legs pinkly, even ‘thinking about any of that sort of thing’ for the moment.

In the meantime, with my own due date marching towards me, I ask Jade if, with the benefit of hindsight, she has any top tips for anyone entering the labour ward.

‘Have an extra scan. And a Caesarean. And take every bit of pain relief they offer you. Oh, and hope to goodness it’s not as big as George.’

Video: British woman gives natural birth to BIG BABY in Spain (related)

Share or comment on this article: What a whopper! At an eye-watering 15lb 7oz, George is thought to be the biggest baby born naturally in Britain.