Are humans mothering in captivity?
By Julia Jones
Once upon a time, a baby gorilla was born in captivity as part of a breeding program at Ohio Zoo.
The baby was raised in an enclosure, away from other gorillas and she never witnessed other gorilla mothers raising their infants. Because of this isolated upbringing, she didn't have much experience with social and emotional relationships.
Image credit: Mariola Grobelska
The young gorilla grew up, and eventually — as part of the breeding program — she gave birth to her own baby. And that’s where the problem started…
Like all mammals, gorilla babies evolved to be breastfed. But this young gorilla mother couldn’t breastfeed her baby. She had no concept of breastfeeding — after all, she’d never seen it. She couldn't figure out what to do with her baby, and sadly, her baby died.
The next time this gorilla became pregnant, the Ohio Zoo staff decided to try a new strategy. They wanted to increase the baby's chances of survival.
So they reached out to La Leche League, a breastfeeding support organisation in the USA. The zoo staff asked the La Leche volunteers, who were also mothers, if they would come and breastfeed near the pregnant gorilla’s enclosure. The mothers, who were used to supporting humans to breastfeed, said yes to this unusual request.
These volunteer mothers came to the Ohio Zoo and sat by the enclosure throughout the gorilla’s pregnancy. As they sat, they breastfed their own babies.
At first, the gorilla wasn't very interested. But after a while, as the birth of her baby approached, she became increasingly interested in the humans. She watched them feeding their babies day after day.
When it was time, the gorilla gave birth. She still didn't know what to do with her baby, so the zoo called La Leche League again for some support.
Outside the gorilla’s enclosure, a volunteer mother picked up her baby, held it to her breast, and fed it.
And finally, the gorilla mother mimicked the behaviour. She picked up her own infant, held the tiny gorilla to her breast, and the gorilla baby fed.
(Wondering if this is a true story? When I wrote my bestselling book Newborn Mothers, I contacted the zoo in Ohio, and they confirmed it.)
Humans are mothering in captivity too
What can we learn from this story of the gorilla and her baby?
Just like the gorilla mother in the story, human parents these days are mothering in captivity. They’re often alone, with no supportive community around them. This means they never have a chance to learn the basics of parenting. Many new parents haven’t spent any time at all with babies until they have their own.
By contrast, in times gone by, babies were very much present in the lives of childless adults. You might have been an aunt or an older sister, constantly surrounded by babies and helping to care for them alongside your other daily tasks. By the time you became a parent yourself, you’d already be familiar with many parenting skills.
But nowadays we parent in private. We are no longer surrounded by the uncles and the grandmothers and the siblings who would've naturally shared these skills and supported us as mothers.
Many modern Western colonised societies don't think babies should be out in public spaces. Have you noticed that babies often aren't welcome in restaurants, on public transport, at weddings, and other events? As a result, it’s not very common to see people breastfeeding out and about. So most of us, before having our own babies, don’t have the opportunity to observe how parents care for their children. We don’t witness strategies for getting a baby to sleep. We don’t see a baby latching onto the breast. We don’t notice early newborn hunger cues like rooting or lip-smacking.
And because we don’t see those things, we don’t learn about them. So it can be a big shock when we become parents and are confronted with newborn behaviour, which, let’s face it, can be pretty confronting at the best of times! As new parents, we often don’t know what’s normal for babies and what’s not. We don’t know how to respond appropriately, just like the gorilla didn’t know how to respond appropriately.
Mothering is a learned skill
Why don’t we know how to respond appropriately? Why don’t new mothers magically know exactly what to do when their babies cry? Aren’t we supposed to have this amazing, innate maternal instinct…?
No!
On the contrary, mothering is a learned skill. No one gives birth and wakes up the next day knowing exactly what to do. Mothering is not an instinct that switches on instantly at the moment of birth.
We do have some instincts, of course. For example, you probably feel a rise in stress levels when you hear the shrill sound of a baby’s wail. Everyone can relate to that. Humans have a natural instinct to feel uncomfortable with the sound of crying and want it to stop. Makes sense, from an evolutionary point of view, right? But we don’t necessarily know how to stop the crying. That aspect of parenting is a learned skill.
And how do we learn mothering skills? Not through books and charts and data. No, we learn these skills through community; being in small groups with other parents, observing, asking questions, listening, looking, trying things out or copying what more experienced parents are doing. This is how parents have learned the crucial skills to care for their babies for millennia. Yet when we mother in captivity, we lose access to all that rich, complex learning.
What new parents really need
New parents need high-quality education and care in order to thrive. But instead, they are often provided with tools and charts and gadgets and gizmos. Maybe they’re scrolling social media, and click on an ad for a soft toy with a heartbeat, hoping that finally this will be the magic bullet that solves their sleep woes. There’s a multimillion-dollar industry of products marketed to make parents’ lives easier or keep babies safer. That approach does not teach mothering skills, and it often makes new parents feel overwhelmed and unsure of themselves. It can make parents feel like their own hands and hearts (and breasts!) are not enough.
Sometimes, mothers do need professional or medical support, but often, mothering skills can be learned in a supportive community, with no specialised equipment or tools.
Remember the gorilla mother at the beginning of this article? She wasn't given charts and told to breastfeed on a schedule. She wasn't given a breast pump. All the zoo staff did was surround that mother with other breastfeeding mothers.
And that supportive community was enough to help her learn to feed her baby.
But what if a supportive community just isn’t there? What if a mother desperately wants support, but doesn’t know how to get it?
That’s why we started the postpartum renaissance. For over a decade, we’ve been training professionals to support mothers and help them to rebuild the village of support.
