KARACHI, Pakistan -- Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto gave birth Thursday to a daughter, her second child, and by all accounts became the first head of government in modern history to give birth while in office, her family announced.
'Almighty Allah has blessed my daughter, Benazir, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, with a daughter at 9:35 this morning,' Bhutto's mother, Nusrat, said in a brief statement. There was no word on the child's name.
Sources at the Bhutto family home in the southern port city of Karachi said the baby, whose name has not been announced, weighed 7 pounds. Mother and daughter were reported to be in good health and resting comfortably in a Karachi hospital.
Hundreds of people danced and sang in the street in the slum areas of Karachi after the birth announcement was made.
The baby is the 36-year-old prime minister's second child. Bhutto, while as opposition leader, gave birth to a boy, Bilawal, Sept. 21, 1988. Less than three months later, she was nominated as prime minister after her Pakistan People's Party won the first democratic elections in the South Asian nation in 11 years.
While it cannot be determined beyond all doubt, Bhutto apparently is the first head of government in modern history to give birth while in office.
Her pregnancy has been criticized by opposition leaders, who said it would interfere with her running of the government.
Bhutto was in Karachi to distribute land to poor farmers in the area and was due to return to Islamabad Wednesday, but she decided to stay in the southern city after it became apparent she was about to give birth.
Her entourage has included a doctor and paramedics for the past month.
Bhutto, educated at Harvard and Oxford, married Zardari, a wealthy businessman, Dec. 18, 1987. The marriage was arranged by their two families, according to Pakistani tradition.
Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was overthrown in a 1977 coup by then-army chief of staff Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and hanged two years later for involvement in a plot to kill a political opponent.
Zia ruled the country for 11 years, eight of them as head of a military government, until his death in a mysterious plane crash in August 1988.
A leader of the Combined Opposition Parties and member of the National Assembly, Syeda Abida Hussain, told United Press International after the birth that Bhutto 'should not have gone for a second child while in office.
'It is expected of those who are the leaders to make sacrifices,' she said. 'But it is clear that the prime minister of Pakistan wants it all -- motherhood, domesticity, glamour, and whole responsibility. She is even seeking more power than she has. Such a person in an ordinary context would be described as greedy.'
