CINCINNATI -- A northern Kentucky woman believes she is the smallest woman who ever gave birth.

Stacey Herald, 33, gave birth five weeks ago to an 18-inch daughter who is not much smaller than her mother, reported WLWT-TV in Cincinnati.

"I'm 28½ inches, head to heel," said Herald, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.

Herald's 16-month-old daughter, Katira, also suffers from the genetic disorder that causes bones to break easily, but her youngest daughter, Makaia, is expected to grow to average height.

"'Yesterday I was 5 weeks old, (and) I'm already over half as big as my mommy,'" said Herald, changing her infant daughter's diaper.

Officials from the Guinness Book of World Records are investigating Herald's claim as she savors the joys of motherhood with her husband, Wil Herald, who is studying to become a minister.

"My whole life I've been told that I wasn't able to have children, (and) I would not live through the pregnancy -- that with the size of my torso, the baby would grow up underneath my lungs and smother out my lungs and my heart, and we would both die," Herald said.

"Something inside me just didn't believe that," she said.

When Herald became pregnant with Katira, doctors warned that she and the baby would be endangered and they advised her to schedule an abortion.

"We said, 'No, we're not doing that,' and my doctor -- I love her to death, she's so sweet -- she said, 'OK,' she said, 'We'll do it. We'll provide the best medical care we provide. You provide the faith and we'll see what happens,'" Herald said.

Pregnancy swelled Herald's belly to comically large proportions, the woman said.

"If I laid down, I looked like a snail," she said, laughing. "That's how big my belly was. I looked like an Idaho potato with arms and legs."

She kept laughing as she recalled her late-stage pregnancy.

"You couldn't see my feet," Herald said. "You know, my legs are there you know, but my belly came out so long, that all you could see was a belly with toes."

Although she laughs easily about past difficulties, Herald is aware that her condition creates unique challenges as her children grow up.

"The only thing that I cannot do for my children is, like, if they want (to go) from the swing to the bed or the bed to the swing, or, like, picking them up," Herald said. "Now, Makaia I can -- for now. I'm sure she'll be carrying me one day."