Princess Beatrice has given a rare glimpse into her second pregnancy with Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi in a new essay for British Vogue. The Princess of York welcomed baby Athena early on January 22, 2025.

The joyous news was announced by both Buckingham Palace and her husband, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. Now Beatrice, who has recently been named patron of Borne – a prematurity research charity – has spoken about her own experience 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?'”

The Princess, who gave birth at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said Athena “arrived healthy” just a few weeks before her due date.

She said her daughter was “so tiny it took more than a few weeks for the tears of relief to dry and for life with our healthy baby to feel real”.

She added: “Her feet were so small – almost the same size as the paws on one of my older daughter’s soft bunnies.

“I’m extremely pleased to let you know Athena is now doing really well, I have a few more answers as to what happened, but still no precise explanation.

“Looking back over those months of sheer worry, I am filled with a sense of determination that more can be done to help others find answers to those questions around the complications that can lead to preterm birth – questions that defined my days (and nights) during pregnancy.”

Beatrice also spoke about her new role as patron of Borne, saying: “I am now a patron of Borne, a very personal appointment that – as with lots of the organisations I support – I take great pride in. They say a problem shared is a problem halved, and as with my work around dyslexia, I hope to do as much as possible to support others like me.

“During this time, I found comfort in being as open as possible with family, friends and even other mums at the school gates, and in trying to learn as much as I could.”

She added: “Maybe it’s to do with getting a little older, and hopefully a little wiser – or maybe it’s something to do with my mother’s breast and skin cancer diagnosis last year – but for me, nothing feels more vital than facilitating the necessary research into the health challenges that women face daily. “