My current research is exploring the unknowns of the importance of sociality to elephant labour and birth processes. It explores the wide reaching benefits that may come to whole elephant social groups when female elephants give birth in the company of their family.
Key hypotheses of the project: Elephants, like humans, may be an exception among mammals in that birth is not a private affair. The social support received by a labouring female may play a crucial role in shaping the progression of a healthy labour. The close, intimate company of older, experienced females—who are mothers or even grandmothers themselves—appears to play a particularly important role in keeping a labouring female calm during labour and in protecting the calf after birth, especially if the mother is primiparous, and/or in a distressed state. Labour and birth are physiological processes, and stress hormones are known to interfere with the hormones that promote labour progression. Since most obstetric options for assisted delivery are not available to elephants (for example the nature of elephant skin and location of the uterus does not permit cesarian section), all efforts need to be directed towards preventing difficult births from happening in the first place. Of paramount importance to this is assuring a low-stress environment for labouring females, with access to social support from experienced group mates, as for most social mammals contact with group mates can act as a social buffer against various stressors. Furthermore, giving birth in the group may help younger females, who are yet to have calves themselves, be better prepared for their own future first births, through the experience and knowledge gained from witnessing parturition events in group mates directly.
The project is part of a larger postdoctoral research project, that is looking at social support behaviours in social mammals more generally, entitled “The significance of sociality during the peri-parturitional period in social mammals, with a focus on elephant species”
Do you have an account, experience or anecdote regarding social behaviours during parturition in elephants (or other social mammals) you want to share? Please fill in the form below, or contact me at connierballen@gmail.com