A British servicewoman has given birth while serving in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The woman, who is understood to have been unaware of her pregnancy, had a son at Camp Bastion on Tuesday. Mother and baby are in a stable condition and are due to fly home in the next days after a specialist medical team from the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford arrives in the Helmand province base.

An MoD spokesman said: "We can confirm that on 18 September a UK servicewoman serving in Afghanistan gave birth in the Camp Bastion field hospital to a baby boy.

"Mother and baby are both in a stable condition in the hospital and are receiving the best possible care.

"A specialist paediatric retrieval team is being prepared and will deploy in the next few days in order to provide appropriate care for mother and baby on the flight home."

The spokesman added: "It is not military policy to allow servicewomen to deploy on operations if they are pregnant. In this instance, the MoD was unaware of her pregnancy.

"As with all medical cases, when the need arises, individuals are returned to the UK for appropriate treatment/care."

According to the Daily Mail, the woman served as a gunner with the Royal Artillery, and had been deployed with the 17th Mechanised Brigade since March. The newspaper said she only discovered she was pregnant after she went to the medics complaining of stomach pains. The baby was born five weeks premature.