In a Washington first, Seattle zoo's newest gorilla born by c-section

SEATTLE - In the months leading up to her pregnancy, Olympia and the baby both looked healthy. Regular checkups every two weeks included ultrasounds to see how both were doing. Heart rate, bone growth and amniotic fluid all appeared to be stable. Olympia looked to be on track for a mid-May delivery.

By Sunday, May 24, Olympia was five days past her due date. Tests throughout the weekend picked up a lower fetal heart rate than normal. After that eventually stabilized, Olympia's care team went back for one more test Sunday morning. An ultrasound showed almost no amniotic fluid around the baby.

At this point the care team needed to make a call: Olympia was possibly in active labor, but they wouldn't be able to see more unless she went under anesthesia for a cervical exam. She was also becoming more resistant to ultrasound exams than at earlier checkups, possibly indicating that something had changed. It was looking more and more likely that a vaginal delivery wasn't going to be an option.

The risks and benefits a c-section procedure were on the minds of Olympia's care team, including her zookeepers, Woodland Park's Director of Animal Health Dr. Tim Storms, and a team of human care providers from Providence Swedish in Seattle.

The decision was eventually made as a team: Olympia would undergo a cesarean section to assist with the delivery of her baby.

On the afternoon of May 24, Olympia, one of 13 gorillas at the Woodland Park Zoo, gave birth to a 5.4-pound gorilla boy. For the first time in the zoo's 126-year history, a gorilla was born via cesarean section. The procedure has been performed only a handful of times across the world, according to the zoo, and is thought to be the first in Washington state history. And the team that accomplished it came from backgrounds in both animal and human health.

"I'm not sure I was quite aware prior that doing a cesarean section on a gorilla was so uncommon," said Dr. Emily Norland, Obstetrics and Gynecology specialist and chief of OB/GYN at Providence Swedish First Hill in Seattle and a member of the care team, said in a recent interview with USA Today.

Gorillas at Woodland Park Zoo

A total of 17 gorillas have been born at Woodland Park, including Olympia's most recent birth in May. The zoo saw two gorilla births in May alone: one of the zoo's gorillas named Jamani gave birth to a son on May 18 before Olympia's emergency cesarean section. Before coming to Seattle, Olympia and Jamani both spent time at the North Carolina Zoo, where they each gave birth a few weeks apart in 2012.

Births are critical events for western lowland gorillas. The critically endangered species' population has declined by more than 60% over the last 20 to 35 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The animals live in some of the most remote rainforests in Africa, so the exact number of wild gorillas left is unknown.

According to the Gorilla Species Survival Plan, there are 343 gorillas housed in accredited zoos and aquariums throughout the world. Of those gorillas in captivity, an estimated 182 are females, who are often pregnant for eight to nine months and have around four babies in their lifetimes.

"Unlike human pregnancies where 50% of them are unplanned, a gorilla pregnancy is a internationally coordinated event through the species survival program," Norland said.

At the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, three veterinarians and six vet technicians make up the animal care team, according to Storms. While that team is a equipped to handle most of the animal health needs at Woodland Park, Storms said there are regular consultations with outside veterinary specialists who help with things like cardiology, neurology or other surgeries.

"But specifically with great apes, we rely on human medical consultants because there's so much similarity there," Storms said.

The risky call for intervention on Olympia's pregnancy

Olympia's emergency cesarean section was not the first time the Providence Swedish team worked together outside the hospital.

The team included Norland; Dr. Suzanne Peterson, Maternal and Fetal Medicine specialist and program director of Providence Swedish's OB/GYN Residency Program; Dr. Andrew Beckstrom, Neonatal-Perinatal specialist and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit medical director at Providence Swedish First Hill, and charge nurse Lily Pang of Labor and Delivery and OB Quality at Providence Swedish First Hill.

Peterson and Beckstrom recalled helping with the pregnancy of Batu, an orangutan, in 2024. The group was called back in for Olympia's pre-natal care at around 16 weeks.

"The gorilla keepers are the ones that really provided prenatal care," Norland said. "I feel like our role was really to support their work with a little bit of additional information."

Part of that added care involved ultrasound technology. Gorillas have to be trained to undergo ultrasound exams, Storms said, and Olympia's keepers were key in helping train her to allow the Swedish team to look at her belly. After voluntarily approaching a mesh screen, the Swedish team got access to a small strip (a few inches at most, Peterson said) of Olympia's stomach to see how the baby was doing.

Starting at 16 weeks, the team began monitoring things like the how much amniotic fluid was around the baby, the length of the baby's femur, how the heart was beating and even what the skull looked like. But all that depended on how Olympia sat for the exam and how the baby was positioned in her belly.

"We're getting wherever the gorilla baby wants to give us on the abdomen," Peterson said.

On the morning of May 24, Norland and Peterson didn't see any amniotic fluid around the baby. With a dipping heart rate and low fluid, Peterson said the team began to think about next steps for Olympia. "Our concern was that she was in labor and that labor was not progressing," Norland said.

An intervention at this stage in Olympia's pregnancy would have risks, Norland said. A cesarean section would require putting the gorilla under anesethia and moving Olympia from her enclosure to the Woodland Park hospital on the other side of the zoo. If she was in labor, Storms said the team would need to immobilize Olympia and perform a cervical exam to confirm that a vaginal delivery would not be possible.

Norland and Peterson later examined Olympia's cervix and saw that she was dilated only two centimeters. "Her water had broken and the baby was not in the pelvis," Peterson said. After another ultrasound while she was sedated, Storms, the Swedish team and Olympia's keepers made the decision to go ahead with the procedure.

"This was interdisciplinary and and it was interspecies interdisciplinary," Peterson said. Woodland Park Zoo would soon welcome a gorilla to the world in a new way.

'More similarities than differences. And then some pretty key differences.'

Pang, the labor and delivery nurse, approached Olympia's birth like she would any other at the hospital. "I was preparing like I would for a human patient," she said.

While the surgical steps of a cesarean section are planned out, Norland emphasized how they are applied differently depending on each patient. And for Olympia, that included a few key differences in how the team worked to safely deliver her baby.

Olympia's skin was thicker than human skin, according to Norland. The distance between her skin and fascia, deeper connective tissue, was small than expected. "So as we're going through to find her fascia, I'm thinking to myself: I'm going to have to adapt my plan for how to close her incision," Norland said.

The team also planned a different incision to avoid hitting extra blood vessels connected to the uterus.

Gorillas also have a differently shaped uterus than humans, Norland said, that is "a little bit more long and narrow than a human uterus." And her abdominal cavity's spherical shape allowed the uterus to take up less space around the bowel, which gorillas have much more of than humans do.

Norland and Peterson went to great lengths to adjust the muscle memory of doing a cesarean section on a human and transferring it to a gorilla in the safest way possible.

"It was the thickness of the skin, it was the shape of the abdomen, it was the size and diameter of the bowel," Peterson said of the main differences.

But most of the other elements of the surgery were the same as a human operation. Tracking the heart rate and other parts of Olympia's pre-natal care mirrored that of a human closely. Peterson, Norland and Pang all felt that their training applied well and transferred smoothly between gorilla and human.

"There really are more similarities than differences. And then some pretty key differences," Norland said.

Post-birth and history at Woodland Park Zoo

After Norland and Peterson completed the surgery, Beckstrom began helping the baby gorilla into the world. Beckstrom needed to prepare for supporting a baby that was smaller and lighter than he's used to.

"There's no medical journals that tell me: this is what we need to do," he said.

In his first few moments out of the womb, Olympia's new child wasn't crying. He also wasn't breathing. But the team anticipated that might be the case because of the general anesthesia. Instead of a breathing tube, Beckstrom and the team opted for a ventilation mask. It took a bit of time, but once his system cleared out the medicine Olympia's baby made the transition and has done "incredible well," according to Beckstrom.

Olympia's baby has been doing well since the late-May procedure, according to the Zoo. Olympia and Jamani swapped babies shortly after the birth, so the young gorilla born via cesarean section is now being watched over by Jamani.

"Everyone gets to remain close in the same family group, both moms have an infant to care for, and Olympia and Jamani have become foster moms to each other's babies," said Curator of Mammalogy at Woodland Park Zoo Martin Ramirez in a statement. Olympia also appears to be recovering well after the surgery.

Pang thought she had reached the highs of her career while traveling around the world -- but then she stepped in to help with Olympia's pregnancy.

Norland is a life long animal lover and both her and Pang described their support of Olympia's pregnancy as important moments in their career.

"This was really a dream come true," Norland said.

Zachary Fletcher is a trending news reporter with USA TODAY Network's Washington state team. Keep up with him on X (@zdfletch), BlueSky (@zfletcher.bsky.social) or reach him at zfletcher@usatodayco.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In a Washington first, Seattle zoo's newest gorilla born by c-section

Reporting by Zachary Fletcher, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 11:50 AM.