London, Sept. 9 : Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is said to have kept the birth of her youngest child, Trig, a secret even from her closest aides.

According to The Independent, they did not know Palin was pregnant until a few weeks before Trig''s birth in April, and that was because she hid her pregnancy.

The 44-year-old Governor was struggling to come to terms with the fact that the baby would be born with Down''s Syndrome. She also feared a public backlash over the pregnancy. So she kept working, even travelling to Texas a month before her due date, to give a speech.

On the day of that speech, Palin began discharging amniotic fluid. She went ahead and gave the speech anyway, before returning to Alaska – a 10-hour flight.

"Nobody knew a thing," Governor Linda Lingle of Hawaii told The New York Times.

"I only found out from my security detail on the way home that she had gone into labour and that she had gone home to Alaska," she was quoted, as saying.

Trig Paxson Van Palin was born early next morning, weighing 6lb 2oz.

"Many people will express sympathy, but you don''t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy," Palin wrote in an e-mail. Three days later, the Governor returned to work. (ANI)