“No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother’s love.” – Hope Edelman
While each year has one specific day set aside to honor our mothers, sometimes we like to celebrate them in between, too.
Every year, there are new stories of the love, sacrifice, and devotion of our mothers.
How could anyone not be overflowing with gratitude for the mothers who love us?
And moms are awesome across species.
When we talk about a mother’s love, we just don’t talk about human mothers.
In the animal kingdom, we would be able to see equally amazing and loving mothers.
A great example would be this video.
It shows a gorilla taking care of her infant, similar to how we, humans, take care of ours.
Gorillas are amazing animals.
And they are very similar to us. In fact, science backs this up.
“The big picture is that we’re perhaps 98 percent identical in our sequences to gorillas. So that means most of our genes are very similar, or even identical to, the gorilla version of the same gene,” said Chris Tyler-Smith, a well-known geneticist at Wellcome Trust.
That being said, it’s not only in the physical form that we’re similar.
Gorilla mothers are also known to exhibit human-like traits when it comes to their children.
Gorilla moms have strong bonds with their babies.
They take care of their children in their first few years, providing shelter, food, protection, and of course, love.
In documentaries or photos, we usually see Gorilla mothers carrying their infant children on their backs or against their chests, bringing them everywhere they go.
This heartwarming video gained 20 million views.
It was uploaded by Reproduction Live TV at the Smithsonian National Zoo located in Washington, DC.
The video features Calaya, a western lowland gorilla.
It shows her giving birth.
The short clip showed Calaya giving birth, unassisted, to her first offspring, a male.
For all women that have already given birth, we all know how difficult it was, right?
The pain of labor and the exhaustion that you would feel afterward is unimaginable.
Look at Calaya, all alone as she gave birth to her offspring. You can see just how exhausted she was as she carefully took her infant and cleaned it herself.
“Mom mode” was instantly activated.
There was no time for rest. Calaya carefully cradled her baby and positioned him near her breast.
Then, she held him close to her and looked at him lovingly.
She kissed her newborn.
You can just feel the love from this mother. The way she held him and the way she kissed him was so pure and beautiful.
No matter how much your body aches, no matter how painful it was to give birth – once you see your child, you will forget all of those feelings.
Looking at how Calaya takes care of her infant is very similar to how we take care of our babies.
Look at how she holds him.
See how she kisses him and breastfeeds him. It was such a beautiful video that shows how much love a mother can give.
We have to admit, this Gorilla mom is amazing!
Giving birth in a hospital fully equipped with medical instruments and surrounded by people is daunting, let alone going through the whole process all on your own.
But that’s what Calaya did. She’s a mom forever now and nothing can prevent her from caring for her littles, and I mean nothing.
See Calaya pull her firstborn baby from the womb and shower it with a mother’s love in the video below!
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