Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon was born in Los Angeles in October 1996, the product of a relationship between Madonna and personal trainer and actor Carlos Leon. Lourdes, now 12, is said to be keen to spend more time with her father, who is known to have been staying in Madonna's New York apartment, overseeing redecoration.

Known as "Lola" to her father, they are said to talk on the telephone every day and says she has downloaded music it's not known whether it includes her mothers' onto his phone. However, Lourdes is clearly following in her mother's footsteps and has been photographed out and about in a number of stylish teenage outfits.

Rocco Ritchie was also born in Los Angeles, in August 2000, nearly two years after his parents met and four months before their wedding. The singer's choice of a Los Angeles hospital rather than one near her home in London caused controversy because she had previously criticised English hospitals for being "old and Victorian". Now eight, Rocco is being educated in London and has already shown himself able to be in the spotlight, winking at the camera at family photocalls.

David Banda Mwale Ritchie was adopted by the couple in October 2006, when just a year old, while Madonna was in Malawi to help build an orphanage she had funded as part of a charity. He had suffered from malaria and tuberculosis. The move provoked controversy because Malawian law was said to state that adoptive parents have to be resident in the country for one year before adopting and there were reports that the boy's natural father had believed he was only going to be fostered. Madonna rejected the allegations, saying the law did not prevent foreign adoptions and attacked the media for criticising the idea of taking a child out of African poverty; she said the boy's father had rejected their offers of financial help in favour of adoption.

The adoption was eventually formalised legally this May.

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