SIZE really does matter for doting new parents Liana and Martin Henegan.

For no sooner was their little bundle of joy born, they were back in the shops - exchanging their newborn clothes for those big enough to fit a six-month old.

The couple became parents for the first time last month after baby Jacob was born by Ceasarian section at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

But their first-born turned out of be something of a surprise package - because he weighed in at a hefty 13lb 4oz on September 29.

Export co-ordinator Martin, aged 34, of Rowland Street, Atherton, said: "We knew he was a boy but we didn't know he was going to be so big. Everyone was really impressed. When he appeared he had a full head of brown and blond streaked hair and looked like he'd just come out of a salon.

"We had plans to call him Harrison, but just before Liana was put under anaesthetic she said she wanted to call him Jacob Campbell.

"Of course all the newborn clothes we had prepared for him were too small. We had to give them all away and replace them to fit a three-to-six month-old.

"There is no history of big babies in the family, but his rugby fan grandads think he'll make a good player. We'll have to wait and see."

His parents put their first baby's size down to the gallons of milk NHS administrator Liana, aged 32, drank while she was pregnant.

Young Jacob is one of the biggest babies to be born in the North-west in the last 10 years.

On July 29 this year Trisha Lightwood gave birth to a 13lb 6 oz son, Sean, in Liverpool, where Joseph Michael Benjamin Griffin was also born in February 2005 weighing in at 13lb 13oz - just an ounce under a stone The largest ever in this country was 15lb 8oz Guy Carr, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in 1992.

The world record for the heaviest newborn baby is 22lb 8oz - a boy born in Italy in 1955.