Dublin Zoo brought in 30 breastfeeding mothers to feed their babies in front of an unmaternal orangutan after two of her previous babies had died.

Mujur, a 19-year-old ape, had not bonded with the infants, born in 2019 and 2022, and both died not long after birth.

When she became pregnant again zookeepers tried a new approach to avoid another fatality of the endangered species.

They put out a call for volunteers which was answered by Lizzie Reeves, a midwife and lactation specialist who is part of the breastfeeding team at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin.

Ms Reeves created a roster of 30 willing mothers to take turns breastfeeding their own infants in front of Mujur for an hour or two each morning before the birth.

They hoped that Mujur would learn how to get her baby to latch on as ape’s often mirror human behaviour. She was also shown videos of other orangutans feeding their babies.

 Mujur, who watched from inside her glass cage, was extremely interested in what the women were doing, even copying some of their actions, the zoo said.

“A lot of women said, ‘Look, an orangutan doesn’t wear a T-shirt’. So they whipped off their T-shirts and their bras so Mujur could literally see everything,” Ms Reeves told the Irish Times.

Nora Murphy, a first-time mother from Dublin, was one of the first to sign up. “You find yourself rooting for her [Mujur]. You are going from being a mother yourself to trying to help a mother-to-be.

“She would stare at you, really looking at what you were doing. She was hand expressing as time went on which was magic.”

‘She just didn’t get there’

Mujur went on to dote on her new baby – a healthy male born on July 31 2024 but not yet named – but struggled again to breastfeed.

“She was doing fantastic. She had the baby in the right place but she just didn’t get there. It was a matter of positioning and she just didn’t have it, unfortunately,” said zookeeper Anthony McClure.

The staff eventually made the decision to bottle feed the infant to ensure he survived. His father Sibu, 44, had died in February.

The infant is now being hand raised and thriving. In a few weeks he will be collected and taken to Monkey World nursery, an ape rescue centre in Dorset.

“The whole team has already fallen hopelessly in love with him, and it will be difficult to say goodbye. However, we are confident that he is being sent to the best possible place for him to continue to develop and thrive,” the zoo said.