After more than eight years of marriage to Japan's royal heir, Crown Princess Masako gave birth to a baby girl on Saturday, her first child, NHK television reported.
The birth was to be followed by a series of elaborate rituals.
Hours after the birth, a palace chamberlain was to present to the newborn a specially commissioned sword with a crimson case lined with white silk and embossed with the imperial seal.

Later, when the baby is ready for its first bath, court-appointed officials in silk costumes will line up outside the bathhouse and pluck at the strings of wooden bows to ward off evil spirits.
Under postwar Japanese law, only males are allowed to assume the throne. The last reigning empress was Gosakuramachi, who ascended in 1762.
But the lack of potential heirs after Naruhito has caused considerable anxiety, and prompted some to call for a revision of the law so that women can also be in line to the throne. Bureau Report