The Duchess of Cambridge, who is almost halfway through her pregnancy, carried out her first official engagement of the year this morning when she visited Hope House, a 22-bed residential facility for women from all over the country to get over addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Her appearance also comes the day after award-winning author Hilary Mantel described the Duchess as "painfully thin" and a "shop window mannequin" - comments which have been criticized by David Cameron and members of the public attending today's event.
Action on Addiction is one of five charities of which the Duchess is patron, and during her 90-minute visit she spent time with women who are in recovery.
Dozens of photographers and TV crews gathered in the street outside the building to get the first officially-sanctioned pictures of the Duchess since Christmas.
Last week photographs of her in a bikini on a beach in Mustique, showing a slight pregnancy bump, were published by magazines in Australia and Italy, but the pictures were not published in the UK after St James's Palace complained that they amounted to an invasion of privacy.
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