Royal dream team Anne and Kate make their debut as a duo
STRIDING side by side with relaxed smiles, Princess Anne and Kate team up for their first royal engagement as a ‘duo’ yesterday.
The pair joined forces to meet maternal healthcare experts. Anne, 71, and Kate, 40, visited the new headquarters of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOB) in London.
The Duchess of Cambridge is patron of the RCOB while the Queen’s daughter performs the same role for the Royal College of Midwives.
The royal women were shown a demonstration of a new device which monitors the safety of babies during labour so that medics can move to an emergency delivery if the head
‘I feared my baby was wedged’
gets stuck. ‘Wedged?’ asked mother-of-two Anne – to laughter from the group of experts. She then told how she feared that would happen to her during one of her pregnancies, adding: ‘I thought, that’s a bit interesting!... [the baby] ended up the right way up though.’
Later Professor Tim Draycott, of the RCOG, explained: ‘She said she had tripped over a horse lorry while heavily pregnant and thought that had happened.’ Anne and Kate visited together because of their shared passion to improve maternal healthcare.
The duchess was elegant in a £400 oatmeal-coloured Self Portrait dress while the Princess Royal had a teal coat and scarf. They watched a demonstration of new training for health workers faced with delivering, via caesarean section, a baby whose head is wedged in the pelvis. The royal visitors were also shown a new app which helps to determine which mothers-to-be are most at risk of complications by using algorithms to pick up on data from their pregnancies.
RCM spokesman Jo Tanner said of the princess: ‘Our members absolutely love her because she takes such a keen interest.’ Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cornwall undertook her first engagement yesterday as the new royal patron of the National Theatre in London.
The role had been given up by Prince Harry’s wife Meghan after her decision to quit as a working royal. Camilla threw herself into the role with typical gusto – by smashing stage crockery and declaring it to be ‘very therapeutic’, adding: ‘I might try it at home!’