Every new mom could use a lactation consultant to help things along with breastfeeding—even Mujur, a 19-year-old orangutan at Ireland's Dublin Zoo who hasn't had much success in the past. Per the BBC, Mujur has given birth twice before, in 2019 and 2022, but she "did not exhibit the necessary maternal qualities," according to the zoo, and both babies died. That's why, when she became pregnant again by the zoo's late orangutan patriarch, Sibu, the zoo recruited dozens of human mothers with newborns to demonstrate for Mujur how to do things, with the moms breastfeeding in front of the great ape to inspire her to try the same once her own baby arrived.
"Orangutans are known to mirror behavior," says lactation specialist and midwife Lizzie Reeves. The zoo decided to leave "no stone unturned" in offering Mujur lactation training, and so it put out a call for volunteers, drawing 30 women to the zoo to show her all about breastfeeding each day for months, with a safety barrier of glass between them. "Mujur was extremely interested in watching the women feed their babies through the glass," and she even mimicked some of what they were doing, the zoo notes, adding that the orangutan habitat was shut down to the public during these times.
Mujur was also shown footage of other orangutans breastfeeding as reinforcement. "Breastfeeding worked for me, but I know it is not always the case for other women," one of the volunteers tells the Irish Times. "I felt like I was passing a torch on [to Mujur]." The experiment didn't lead to quite the success that zoo staff had hoped for: Although Mujur did become a more attentive mother than in the past when her baby was born at the end of July, she still didn't seem to get which position would work best for breastfeeding.
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"She kissed him, cleaned him and she was so gentle with him," Reeves says, per the BBC. "Feeding was the last piece of the puzzle, and we just didn't quite get there." The zoo, therefore, made the "difficult decision" to start bottle-feeding Mujur's newborn. Meanwhile, the moms who participated in the project grew quite attached to their "student," returning to breastfeed in front of her even after Mujur's baby arrived. Reeves calls it "a really good example of women supporting women, regardless of species." The baby will stay at the zoo for another few weeks, then will be sent to a special UK facility better equipped to care for it. (More breastfeeding stories.)
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