The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Photo / AP
The world's media have been entrenched outside St Mary's Hospital in Paddington for weeks now, but the Duchess of Cambridge could yet give them the slip by giving birth in Reading, it has emerged.
The Duchess, who is thought to have passed her due date, has been staying with her
parents in Bucklebury, Berkshire, this week, together with her husband who has time off from his RAF duties.
Aides confirmed that although the Duchess fully intends to have her baby in the private Lindo Wing of St Mary's, a contingency plan for a birth at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, where she was born in 1982, remains in place.
If the Duchess goes into labour while she is staying with her parents and her labour progresses more quickly than expected, her doctors could send her to the Royal Berkshire, which is less than half an hour's drive from Bucklebury, rather than risking the 85km trip to London. It would raise the prospect of the Duchess spending her first night with her baby on a public ward sharing with other mothers, as the hospital does not have a private maternity wing.
A royal source said: "There are contingencies in place for wherever the Duchess happens to be, and one of them is the Royal Berkshire. It is still a possibility that she could give birth there, though that would only be in extremis, as the expectation is that she will go to St Mary's."
