>The keeper stated it would be at least a year or more before [the zoo]
>could >"get to the baby" because mom would not put the baby down until
>then.

I remember a story about a zoo that couldn't even sex the baby because the
mother kept it snuggled against her... until a playgroup or similar group
of mothers and babies visited to the zoo and stood in front of the cage.
Mama gorilla looked at all those mothers and all those babies... and held
*her* baby out for them to see:  "See?  *I'm* a mother, too!"  Ah, the
power of mother-to-mother support groups!

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY