New mom Serena Williams debuts baby girl online

Serena Williams has introduced fans to her newborn daughter online, explaining she struggled through "a lot of complications" as she prepared to become a first-time mother.

The tennis ace, who is engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, was admitted to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 30 August (17) and welcomed the couple's first child on 1 September (17).

Few other details were released at the time, but now Serena has shown off their bundle of joy via Instagram.

The sportswoman shared the first image of little Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr. on Wednesday morning (13Sep17), when she posted a photo of the baby girl resting on her chest.

"Meet Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.," she captioned the sweet snap, while directing fans to check out a video montage the couple had made in the lead up to her birth to document the child's "amazing journey".

The short film begins with a shot of Serena's ultrasound photo, and goes on to show the star's belly as it grows from week to week. Also included in the family video are clips of Serena and her fiance putting together the baby's nursery, and footage of the athlete playing tennis and dancing during her pregnancy.

However, Serena also revealed her first few days as a mom didn't go quite as smoothly as planned. She didn't share specifics about the health issues she faced, but they were serious enough to keep the new mother and baby in hospital for almost a week after the tot's arrival.

In a video on Instagram's Stories function, Serena, holding her little girl, said, "So we're leaving the hospital after six, seven days. It's been a long time, but we had a lot of complications, but look who we got - we got a baby girl!"

New dad Alexis also took to his social media page to post his daughter's first photo: "Welcome, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr., we're so happy to meet you," he wrote. "We made you a video of our adventure together so far... Our little girl is already mama's perfect sidekick."

Serena revealed her pregnancy news via Snapchat in April (17), when she uploaded a selfie as she posed in a yellow bathing suit and captioned it, "20 weeks". She later confessed the image had been posted publicly by mistake.

She became engaged to Ohanian, 34, in December (16).