A 38-year-old woman that had undergone a successful heart transplant seven years ago gave birth to a healthy baby boy at an Athens maternity hospital on Monday morning.

Doctors stressed that this was the only such case in Greece and one of the rare instances where a heart transplant patient had later become a mother worldwide.

"The happy mother is the first instance where the entire process (heart transplant, pregnancy and delivery) took place in Greece," an announcement said.

The delivery was carried out by caesarian section at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, while the mother had a history of serious heart disease and undergone a heart transplant operation in Athens in 2004.