EastEnders star gives birth

Jo Joyner, who plays Tanya Branning, welcomed twins...

14:25 15 January 2010

EastEnders actress Jo Joyner has given birth to twins.

Joyner, who plays Tanya Branning in the BBC soap, has had a healthy boy and girl.

The star announced her pregnancy in July 2009 after undergoing IVF.

She and her actor husband, Neil Madden, had been trying to conceive for four years before trying the fertility treatment.

The Sun newspaper has reported that the couple will present their newborns in a magazine photoshoot deal.

In an interview in October, Joyner told OK! magazine: "You go for fertility tests and we found out it was unlikely we'd have children naturally so we went for it.

"We're quite young and there was still a chance we could conceive, so we decided to give it three tries and if it didn't work out, we'd reassess and look into adoption.

"We're very lucky. It's a miracle really. That's why we're not secretive about it."

Joyner was temporarily written out of the soap for her maternity leave last month in a plot which saw Tanya discover her on/off husband Max (Jake Wood) has hidden the family's crippling financial problems from them.