Previously, we reported on the birth of a baby western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo on May 18. His mother Jamani was one of two pregnant western lowland gorillas bearing children from the same father, a silverback gorilla named Nadaya. Since Olympia was due around the same time, we spent the long weekend waiting anxiously for news.
The Woodland Park Zoo’s announcement arrived last night. The baby was born on May 24—five dates past the due date. To bring her baby into the world, the medical team that usually works on humans performed an emergency C-section on Olympia. The procedure is incredibly rare for gorillas, with less than a dozen recorded gorilla C-sections.
“Over the weekend, the decision to proceed with emergency delivery was due to low fluid and intermittent low baby heart rate (found by us with the Butterfly) and critical behavioral information from the keepers team that suggested delayed/paused labor, with confirmation of ruptured membranes (bag of water) by the Team Gorilla OB physicians,” Sachita Shah, emergency physician and VP of Global Health at medical equipment manufacturer Butterfly Network, tells Popular Science. In a previous interview, Shah said that ultrasounds of gorilla fetuses look very similar to ultrasounds of human fetuses.
Butterfly is an all-in-one ultrasound probe that the gorilla care team has been using to monitor the pregnancies. Once the baby came out, “I used The Butterfly throughout the neonatal resuscitation to keep a close eye on the baby’s heart rate as our vital sign so we were able to ensure the safe point to transition from neonatal resuscitation to post natal care,” Shah adds.
Whether for humans or gorillas, a C-section is a major operation, and Olympia rested without the baby for the first night after the birth. But the newborn wasn’t far away—a gorilla keeper and veterinary technician took care of the baby in a den next to Olympia’s, so she was able to see, hear, and smell it. Both Olympia and the baby boy are now back with their gorilla troop, though Jamani is taking care of Olympia’s newborn as well as her own baby boy.
“So far Olympia’s baby is doing well and maintaining a healthy body temperature. While Olympia recovers from the C-section, our plan is to allow Jamani to continue caring for Olympia’s son while also caring for her own son as long as both infants remain healthy, which is our priority,” Martin Ramirez, Curator of Mammalogy at Woodland Park Zoo, explained in a blog post. “Once Olympia shows signs of being ready for her baby, we’ll move forward with plans to reunite them.”
It remains to be seen what the mother-son duo will look like. However, western lowland gorillas are critically endangered, so the important thing is that both remain healthy.
