Actress Kate Winslet gave birth to a boy just before Christmas, her publicist Jennifer Allen said on Friday.

Britain-born Winslet, 28, and her Oscar-winning movie director husband Sam Mendes, who married in May in the West Indies, welcomed Joe Mendes into the world in New York on December 22, she said.

The little boy tipped the scale at 3.5kg.

The baby is the first for the couple. Winslet has a 3-year-old daughter, Mia, from her previous marriage to Jim Threapleton.