LOS ANGELES - The African-born daughter of Hollywood couple Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt was delivered by Cesarean section in a weekend surgery and
birth that "went flawlessly," Jolie's doctor said on Tuesday.
Details of the birth, which occurred on Saturday at the Cottage Medi-Clinic
Hospital in the Namibian town of Swakopmund, were first 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 7 pounds (3.18 kg) 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 Cesarean 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 first images of the newborn that 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.
Rumors 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.