Big Daddy: 'World's Tallest Man' Has Son
BEIJING, Oct 4, 2008 — -- The world's tallest man, China'sBao Xishun, became the world's tallest father this week withthe birth of his first child, a boy whose initial height seemsa compromise between his gigantic dad and average-sized mum.
Bao's son measured 22 inches long atbirth, the senior doctor at Zunhua Hospital in Hebei provincetold Reuters.
Although slightly taller than average for newborn children,Bao's boy came up well short of the 29.5 inches claimed as a record birth length last year, alsoin China.
"Bao is quite happy. The baby is healthy and a normalsize," the hospital's senior doctor Zhang told Reuters.
Bao, a 7-foot-9-inch herdsman from InnerMongolia, last year married Xia Shujuan, a pygmy by contrast at5-foot-6 inches.
"I hope he or she can be about 2 metres tall," Bao, 57,said last year about his wishes for a child. "Then he or shecan play basketball."
His son weighed 4.2 kilograms at birth, a touch heavierthan average.
Bao briefly lost his Guinness World Records title as thetallest man to Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk but regained it inAugust when Stadnyk refused to be measured under newguidelines.
Bao's son was born on Thursday but news of the birth onlyspread widely on Saturday, with the Chinese press according thenewborn a level of privacy that is rare for the world's tallestman.
The former goat herder hires himself out for publicitystunts and his wedding last year was sponsored by at least 15companies.
(Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Valerie Lee)
