New photo of Princess Beatrice's baby Athena quietly released as royal makes announcement

Princess Beatrice bravely opened up about her experiences of giving birth to her second daughter, Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi, prematurely in a recent article in Vogue. Following this update, the Princess joined forces with socialite and business owner Alice Naylor-Leyland to launch a special baby shower collection to raise money for the Borne Charity, of which the Princess is a patron.

Announcing the news on Instagram, Alice shared three new images, one of which appeared to be a never-before-seen snap of Athena swaddled in a pink blanket next to a stuffed toy rabbit. Writing in the caption, Alice said: "It has been both a pleasure & a great honour working with my dear friend Princess Beatrice on our new Baby Shower Collection in aid of @bornecharity.

"I’m so proud of the awareness @beayork has brought to Premature Birth & I’m delighted we were able to create this together celebrating both Motherhood & Friendship."

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The new photograph of Athena comes after Princess Beatrice spoke about her experiences with welcoming her daughter prematurely. The Princess, who said baby Athena is doing "really well," wrote: "Nothing quite prepares you for the moment when you realise your baby is going to arrive early. There’s so little control.

"You know that when your baby arrives the doctors and midwives are going to be there, doing everything they can to ensure she makes it through those challenging first few days. But you have no idea how these things will play out, what happens next. The uncertainty leaves you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown."

Elsewhere, she explained how she "learnt so much" from her second pregnancy when she and husband Edo were made aware that their baby daughter could come early.

Beatrice wrote: "What I learnt 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."

She added: "I’d describe myself as a technology optimist, and my career to date has been focused on how research and better data analytics can offer tools to those in search of a deeper understanding.

"With this experience in mind – and following on from my own pregnancy journey – I’ve found myself in the position of being a passionate new mother who wants to work to find answers for women globally. I want to do all I can to reassure those families whose babies might arrive early that they are not alone.

"It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve come from, so many elements of pregnancy are universal. I’ve had a life that is out of the ordinary, but my joys and fears in pregnancy and motherhood are the same as those experienced by millions of other women around the world. Like countless other expectant mums, 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?'"