'Ordinary wife' Monica Bellucci

Mar 25, 2010, 13:04 GMT

Monica Bellucci is like an "ordinary farm wife".

The 45-year-old actress - who is six months pregnant with her second child - has posed naked to show off her baby bump for Italy's Vanity Fair magazine for the second time, but insists she is just a normal mother-to-be who feels "lucky" to be expecting another baby.

She said: "Women who have children late like me are always told how brave they are and it's true that the older you are the more risks you run both for the child and yourself. But I don't feel brave I just feel very lucky. I already have a healthy daughter who I gave birth to in Umbria like an ordinary farm wife. This second pregnancy is just as fantastic but I wouldn't say I was an example to follow."

While she understands having children later in life isn't ideal, the actress - who already has five-year-old daughter Deva with her husband Vincent Cassel - couldn't make up her mind about whether or not she wanted to have a second child.

She explained: "When I had my first child at 39 I was told that if I wanted another I should try straight away but I wasn't ready. "Eventually I decided that I was and I wanted one straight away but babies are not like movies and cannot be organised in a hurry."

Monica - who also posed nude when she was pregnant with Deva - never felt in any rush to start a family, but admits she is "lucky" to have fallen pregnant without too many problems.

She explained: "My paternal grandmother had a child at 47 years old but I think I'm just lucky. I know women who would cross the desert on their knees to have a child. Maybe if that had happened to me and I had difficulty then I would have become one of them."