Princess Beatrice Opens Up About Baby Daughter Athena’s Preterm Birth

Princess Beatrice is speaking candidly about the experience of welcoming her baby daughter, Athena, preterm. 

The King’s niece, 36, and husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi announced the birth of their second child on Jan. 22. In a first-hand account published by British Vogue on Sunday, March 23, she recalled having gone through “sheer worry” following her daughter’s birth several weeks early but said she“learned so much” from the experience.

The royal shared that her baby daughter “needed close monitoring” throughout her pregnancy and that she and her husband “understood we needed to prepare for an early arrival.”

“What I learned in this process has been humbling: understanding so much more about our remarkable human bodies, but also, more than anything, what we don’t know,” Princess Beatrice wrote.

“I lay awake in the weeks leading up to birth, trying to monitor each movement of the baby in my tummy and asking myself a thousand times,“ ‘What if this happens, or what if that happens?’ ” Princess Beatrice said. 

“I was very fortunate to be monitored closely by a medical team and I’m extremely aware of how lucky I am,” she continued, noting that her daughter Athena “arrived healthy, a few weeks before her due date.”

The mom-of-two said her baby daughter was “so tiny” at the time, like the paws of a bunny, and that “it took more than a few weeks for the tears of relief to dry and for life with our healthy baby to feel real.”

Princess Beatrice revealed Athena “is now doing really well.” She said that she has had “a few more answers as to what happened, but still no precise explanation” of the early birth.  

“Looking back over those months of sheer worry, I am filled with a sense of determination that more can be done to help others find answers to those questions around the complications [of] preterm birth – questions that defined my days (and nights) during pregnancy,” she wrote. 

Princess Beatrice concluded that her pregnancy experience and her mother Sarah Ferguson’s breast and skin cancer diagnoses in 2024, have urged her to help in “facilitating the necessary research into the health challenges that women face daily.”

Princess Beatrice and Mozzi tied the knot in 2020 and welcomed their first child, daughter Sienna, in September 2021. The couple made their first appearance after welcoming their second daughter, Athena, at the premature research charity Borne’s Wonderland Gala in London on March 6.

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Beatrice’s account coincided with her sister Princess Eugenie celebrating her 35th birthday on Sunday.

Eugenie marked her birthday by posting a sweet photo on Instagram of her sitting at a small bench table with her sons, August, 3, and Ernest Brooksbank, 1, as they ate a meal outdoors.

“Birthday besties.. 😘🎉🥳🎂🎁🎈🎊,” she wrote in the caption.