London - A 28-year-old British woman who felt initial birth contractions while sitting final exams for a business degree gave birth to a baby girl just hours after achieving a top mark in her subject, it was reported Monday.

Kate Archer noticed small contractions as she answered questions in the last of her examinations for a degree in Business Management and Law at Aberdeen University.

She left the exam last month in the afternoon and, by the next morning, had given birth to Grace, a healthy baby girl.

"I actually had some mini contractions while I was in the exam, but I thought nothing of it, I just remembered being very hot and thinking I might faint," she told the Daily Telegraph.

"At the late stages of the pregnancy I was always talking to Grace telling her 'not yet, not yet' and I was just hoping she would wait till I had finished the exams.

"When I came out of that last exam I told her 'you can do what you want now' and that was it, Grace decided she was coming," Archer said.

She later discovered she had been awarded first class honours degree.

Her partner Mark Evans, a marine engineer who was away from home at the time, had nothing but praise for Kate.

"I am so proud of Kate for doing what she has done, her university work, working part-time, dealing with the pregnancy and coping with me being away, she's a real wonder woman." (dpa)