Nothing like a mother’s love.
The Sedgwick Country Zoo welcomed the newest member of its family on Tuesday after one of its chimpanzees gave birth to a baby boy via a C-Section.
In the heart-melting video, the mother, whose name is Mahale, excitedly embraced her son after almost two days of separation because of labor complications.
“Good job, Mahale!” one of the zoo’s employees said in the video posted on social media.
The baby chimp was given the name Kucheza, which means “play” in Swahili, according to the Kansas-based zoo.
The decision to perform a C-section was made after the animal care team noticed that Mahale was having difficulties performing labor.
Kucheza was reunited with his mother after the zoo’s medical team gave him the all-clear.
OBGYNs, Drs. Whisler and Chibry from College Hill Obstetrics and Gynecology were called in to help zoo veterinarians with the delivery process.
Dr. Heather Arens, the director of animal health at Sedwick County Zoo, was also part of the labor process, saying that the difficulty with human and animal births is that doctors can’t properly monitor animals to find out what their contractions are doing.
“The teamwork and the collaboration with human medical doctors and the collaboration with the community, I think that is something that not every zoo has. So fortunate to be a part of it here in Wichita,” said Dr. Arens told KWCH.