One of National Zoo’s panda cubs is getting round-the-clock medical care, One of the two tiny panda cubs born at the National Zoo on Saturday is faltering, requiring extra medical attention from zookeepers.
Zookeepers provided an update on Tuesday, saying that the smaller of the two cubs has been regurgitating and has not been keeping on weight, but has also not had more serious problems like respiratory distress.When the cub was born, it weighed just three ounces, while its twin weighed 4.8 ounces. In the wild, panda moms that give birth to twins often nurture one baby and let the other perish. To prevent Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s mother panda, from abandoning one of her babies, zookeepers planned to switch the cubs every four hours, letting Mei Xiang spend one-on-one time with each baby.
But Mei Xiang has rejected that plan. Since 2 p.m. Monday, she has refused to switch, keeping only the larger cub — which seems to be doing well in her care though it is still in the high-risk period of infancy, the zoo said on Tuesday.Mei Xiang’s preference for the larger cub means zookeepers must nurture the littler twin around the clock. They are feeding it by bottle and tube, giving it antibiotics to prevent infection and administering fluid under its skin to keep it hydrated.
The zoo said that it has added veterinarians, including a panda keeper from Zoo Atlanta, to its team of caretakers during this perilous time.
The good news: The tiny creature is behaving as a healthy infant panda should, and is urinating, defecating and breathing normally.
The bad news: Its weight has been fluctuating over the first few days of its life, which should not happen after its first 48 hours, the zoo said. And its regurgitation could lead to aspiration of food into its lungs, which would be dangerous for the baby bear.
The zoo noted on Tuesday that even for pandas — which give birth to the smallest babies in relation to their mothers of any placental mammals — these twins are very, very tiny.An ordinary mother-to-baby size ratio is 1 to 700, the zoo said. Mei Xiang, who weighs about 238 pounds, is 783 times heavier than the larger of her two new babies, and a whopping 1,256 times larger than the little one.
Zookeepers provided an update on Tuesday, saying that the smaller of the two cubs has been regurgitating and has not been keeping on weight, but has also not had more serious problems like respiratory distress.When the cub was born, it weighed just three ounces, while its twin weighed 4.8 ounces. In the wild, panda moms that give birth to twins often nurture one baby and let the other perish. To prevent Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s mother panda, from abandoning one of her babies, zookeepers planned to switch the cubs every four hours, letting Mei Xiang spend one-on-one time with each baby.
But Mei Xiang has rejected that plan. Since 2 p.m. Monday, she has refused to switch, keeping only the larger cub — which seems to be doing well in her care though it is still in the high-risk period of infancy, the zoo said on Tuesday.Mei Xiang’s preference for the larger cub means zookeepers must nurture the littler twin around the clock. They are feeding it by bottle and tube, giving it antibiotics to prevent infection and administering fluid under its skin to keep it hydrated.
The zoo said that it has added veterinarians, including a panda keeper from Zoo Atlanta, to its team of caretakers during this perilous time.
The good news: The tiny creature is behaving as a healthy infant panda should, and is urinating, defecating and breathing normally.
The bad news: Its weight has been fluctuating over the first few days of its life, which should not happen after its first 48 hours, the zoo said. And its regurgitation could lead to aspiration of food into its lungs, which would be dangerous for the baby bear.
The zoo noted on Tuesday that even for pandas — which give birth to the smallest babies in relation to their mothers of any placental mammals — these twins are very, very tiny.An ordinary mother-to-baby size ratio is 1 to 700, the zoo said. Mei Xiang, who weighs about 238 pounds, is 783 times heavier than the larger of her two new babies, and a whopping 1,256 times larger than the little one.
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