The Russians said Kate had the baby last week and they waited to announce it as no woman leaves hospital on the same day as giving birth. "It looks like her subjects are having banana oil poured in their ears. If she really gave birth naturally, it was surely some days ago... There is nothing which would help a woman, even if she gave birth with the help of best doctors, stand up five hours after giving birth - and leave the clinic on her feet." From Pravda, which, as we all know, means 'truth'.

Banana oil! I want some.

I know someone who drove to hospital in labour from her farm. Gave birth. Docs made sure she and the baby were fine. She showered and drove home with the baby. Four hours after giving birth, she was mucking out the goat shed with the baby in the capsule nearby. All three of her kids are happy and healthy adults now. She insisted on giving birth in hospital (as a midwife, she knows bad things can happen and you want a doctor and facilities around) but once the important bits were over, she saw no need to stay in hospital. And let's face it, I don't think Kate went home alone to a dingy council flat with no help

I have to say that my daughter looked every bit as well as Kate when she gave birth to her second child and she was home later that day, she didn't want to stay away from her toddler longer than necessary. Also, which was one of the other things printed, her baby also didn't look new born although just a few hours old.

Being a eight-pounder would help give the impression she wasn't new born. My nephew was a 5 1/2 pounder and his mum shared her room with a mum and her 8+ pound baby. The difference was astonishing. Nephew looked tiny, the other one looked like he was a month old!

Personally, for me, they're good strong names, nice to see Diana being acknowledged

About the Pravda article--don't you just know it was written by a man! I used to make a joke that if men had the babies every family would have just one child. My husband looked at me and said, "Nope, none."

Well, I was named after my uncle Charles and I thank my mother for calling me Carole (another diminutive of Charles) instead of Charlotte! I don't particularly like the name Charlotte and any girl named that in Australia automatically gets nicknamed "Charlotte the harlot".

Having said that, I work in a paediatric clinic and am noticing that Charlotte has risen in popularity over the last ten years or so.

I was hoping that they would choose Alice instead of Charlotte. Elizabeth and Diana for middle names were fairly obvious choices.

It didn't make much sense to me that a name had to go through the queen or king...but as an American who knows so little about the royal family in the first place...so thank you to the UK folks to set me straight!

I'm certainly glad they honored Diana...hard to believe it has been almost 18 years since she passed.

I'm surprised about the Pravda article. After all, didn't Russian women give birth out in the fields, wrap the baby up and continue on with gathering the grain? Or was that Chinese women? Or whatever country the west deemed amoral due to being socialist or communist or whatever form of government "we" weren't?

Well, that clearly depends where you're from... my mother always said that was how peasant women did it, but she never specified what nationality/political persuasion the peasants were. She was admiring of them more than not - "they don't make a fuss, they just crouch down, have the baby, wrap it in a shawl and go back to work". But she was of a pre-WWI generation for whom any sort of healthcare was a) completely wonderful and b) going to produce a load of namby-pambies, all at the same time.

I was hoping that Edith would have got a mention somewhere in the name, so that William could have hise Kate and Edith too.

I went to go read some of the Internet conspiracy theories on the new princess. Some of the other proofs that Kate did not have the baby the same morning she walked out of the hospital, or she didn't have the baby at all are

1. She was wearing a white dress.
2. She flipped her hair extensions.
3. When Prince George was presented to the world, Kate and Will walked into the middle of the street holding him and they stayed on the steps with Princess Charlotte.
4. None of the grandparents visited the hospital to see the baby the day she was born.
5. The baby was asleep when brought outside.
6. Kate wasn't holding the baby "close enough."
7. Kate was wearing high heels that afternoon.
9. Kate had not been photographed in the preceding few days. This is an obvious clue! She wasn't photographed because she obviously was in the hospital after having given birth several days before.

And my favorite,

10. Kate didn't have "a maternal look in her eyes."


If you zoom in on a picture of Kate holding the baby and look at her eyes, her eyes look very tired, kind of like she had a very busy, strenuous day.

There were also postings proving Prince George isn't their baby either.

Well she might not be Kate's but by golly she just has to be Wills's daughter. Study the features!

How clever of Kate and her advisers to remember to pad out her tummy to make it look as if she still has a post birth bump.

Ooh, that's sooo bad! But funny!

And those baby conspiracy theories just remind me there are waaaay too many crazy people out there with far too much time on their hands!

Conspiracy theories can be amusing, but do any of these articles/posts suggest WHY they'd lie about what day the baby was born? What difference would it make?

I doubt conspiracy nuts care. Asking WHY they'd lie is much too logical a question for people like that!

Conspiracy theories about royal births aren't new, in fact they're been around for hundreds of years - usually claiming that the real baby died and another was smuggled in or there was no baby at all and another was smuggled in, or some variation on that theme. It was so prevalent that in England whenever a baby in direct line to the throne was born there were always witnesses present. Oh yes, at the very moment of birth, various "strange men" would be given a good view of the proceedings so that they could testify that the child born was that baby right there and no other had been brought in or substituted. The "strange men" were usually government ministers and people appointed for the purpose - I don't suppose they were really strange but I also imagine that the queen in question didn't know them all that well, not prior to the birth anyway.

I think the practice didn't get banned until the birth of Prince Charles - but even his father wasn't present, he was somewhere else playing squash! To be fair, it wasn't the habit then for fathers to be in the same room - but they were generally expected to be pacing up and down outside. Or, as in my father's case, boiling water.

I think the Russians are probably more concerned to hide their own problems. They do keep mothers in hospital for several days after giving birth - their healthcare isn't wonderful, they may not have effective postnatal midwifery care, and one way to stop people saying "wait, why can't we go home straight away?" is to pre-empt the discussion by saying that it didn't happen.

"In MY day" (ahem), one couldn't go home until the baby had regained its birth weight.
I must say that with the second one it was quite nice to stay in the hospital (in my case Queen Charlotte's), and not have all the exhausting stuff that goes with new babies for a while(washing nappies etc). I was in no rush to leave, although that wouldn't apply to Kate.

I thought it was a small type of onion.

You can get Charlotte potatoes.