A woman who was told she would never have children has spoken of her shock to find out she was not ill but seven months pregnant.

Elaine Fantin gave birth to Maria Clara after initially mistaking her swollen stomach for a complication connected to an ovarian cyst.

Ms Fantin, from Bristol, became depressed after discovering she had an ovarian cyst, an underdeveloped womb and blocked fallopian tubes in her early twenties.

The 33-year-old, who is of Brazilian and Italian origin, never took the contraceptive pill and began to accept that she would never have children.

But she went to her GP as her stomach swelled only to be told she was not ill but about seven months pregnant.

Maria Clara arrived just three weeks later after an emergency Caesarean at St Michael's Hospital. Weighing in at 6lb 6oz, she was two months early and needed an injection to make her lungs grow.

Ms Fantin, a cleaner, told the Evening Post in Bristol that her mother in Brazil was going crazy because she thought she would never be a grandmother.

She said: "It has all been a bit of a shock. All my life I was told I couldn't have children and so when the doctor told me I couldn't really believe it.

"The baby must have been kicking but I thought it was in my head."