Mama Agave

08/04/2025

This baby beaver’s lodge was being excavated when the workers heard a tiny little cry and out popped a vulnerable newborn baby beaver. Just moments before, the baby’s mother had swum out of the lodge trying to get away from the destruction of the lodge. We almost never suggest baby beaver reuniting because baby beavers are extremely prone to pneumonia and it’s often an emergency situation when one was found. But this was a rare case where we knew mom was right there and so we gave it a chance.

The machinery was cut off and the baby was placed in a cardboard box next to the water. After just an hour, the crew returned to check on the baby beaver and there was a clear track where the momma beaver came up the bank, smashed the cardboard box down and retrieved the baby. The work was stopped and the remaining lodge was left alone.

Moral of the story: Wild animal moms are incredible. They love their babies fiercely and, when given the chance, will do whatever it takes to get them back. While reunions aren’t always possible, they should always be a priority when they are. We can care for orphaned animals, but we’ll never be a true replacement for their natural mothers. Their love and instincts are real—and powerful. ❤️

08/02/2025

07/11/2025

We’re hoping for a miracle for these tiny little lives, which have been in our care for fifty days. In May, a woman called us demanding that we remove a large snapping turtle who was getting ready to lay eggs in her yard. The mother turtle was in a trance-like state, completely harmless, as she readied to lay her eggs. We told this woman to leave the turtle alone.

She then called multiple other rescues, who told her the same thing: just give the turtle some space. Finding this answer unacceptable, she demanded that her landlord put the mother turtle into the trunk of his car as the poor animal was involuntarily laying eggs. He drove her to the Chattanooga Zoo, which again reiterated that she should have been left alone.

The poor mother turtle must have been scared, confused, and physically and mentally stressed. She should have had a clutch of at least 20, up to 100, but only ten eggs left her body. The Chattanooga Zoo collected them and we rushed over to try to save the eggs.

She may have ultimately become egg-bound and passed away due to this trauma. This majestic, dinosaur-like mother was ultimately driven down the road and dumped in the lake because a woman couldn’t stand the idea of sharing a planet with other life forms.

Survival for snapping turtle eggs is low, and getting lower each year because of human causes, like habitat fragmentation and invasive species, such as feral hogs and black rats, that prey on snapping turtle eggs and hatchlings . Loss of apex predators, like pumas and wolves, has caused smaller predators that eat turtle eggs to overpopulate. It’s all very bad news for these long-lived animals. One study estimated that only one-tenth of one percent of snapping turtle eggs will ever become adult snapping turtles.

This clutch of eggs could have been this mother turtle’s only chance to have surviving young, but instead, she was forced to lay eggs in the trunk of a car. By the time we got to them, all but one of them had collapsed due to the hostile environment and jostling. We tried to save all ten eggs anyway, incubating them carefully in an incubator at the correct temperature and humidity..

The results have been a bit of a surprise. One “chalked”— the first sign of viability— right on time. Two eggs died and began to rot, as we expected of the whole clutch. But, amazingly, seven of the eggs are showing signs of viability despite the fact that they had already collapsed in on themselves. They were late to chalk, but were able to see blood vessels and embryos inside all the eggs when candling them.

If only one of the eggs hatches and produces a viable baby turtle who can go home to the wild, we’ll be thrilled beyond measure. But if the seven collapsed eggs also give us live babies? That will be a true miracle.

Thank you for making our work possible.

07/04/2025

06/30/2025

05/07/2025

🚨🚨🚨BREAKING NEWS! THREE HUGE ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT CALL THE MIDWIFE!!! 🚨🚨🚨

*The latest Call the Midwife Christmas Special will be set in both Hong Kong and Poplar!*

*The world of Nonnatus House is about to expand… to include a brand new prequel series set during World War II*

*There is going to be a Call the Midwife movie filmed in 2026 - starring our
Much-loved cast and set in 1972!!*

Hello all!

As series 15 commences filming, we are thrilled to bring you news that we’ve been dying to reveal… and there is SO MUCH OF IT!!

The BBC and Neal Street, along with our US co-producers PBS, have announced that our forthcoming Christmas Special, set in 1970, will again be in two parts - but this time in two very different locations! The familiar streets of Poplar… and the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong!

Here’s a teaser:

‘When senior members of the Nonnatus House staff head to Hong Kong on a mercy mission, the younger midwives are left to cope alone. As the Christmas action shifts between the sun-drenched Far East and a snowy East End, Sister Julienne suddenly finds herself excited about the Order’s future. After years of battling change, she decides to embrace it, work with it, and see what love can do…’ ❤️

The Christmas Special will then be followed by our eight-part Series 15, set in 1971:

‘Spring sees several of the ladies embracing Women’s Lib and burning their bras outside Nonnatus House. As the year unfolds, we see our team handle cases including premature birth, placenta previa, kidney cancer, tuberculosis and slavery…’

As always, the series will premiere on PBS and the PBS App in the States early in 2026. x

And then?

Well, the world of Call the midwife is about to undergo an exciting expansion…

As this week marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, it seems a rather poignant moment to announce that there is going to be a prequel series of Call the Midwife, made for the BBC in 2026, and set in Poplar during World War Two. ❤️

Our Series Writer and Executive Producer Heidi Thomas explains:

“The opening of new doors at Nonnatus House feels profoundly emotional, and yet just right. I have never run out of stories for our midwives, and I never will. But having wept, laughed, and raged my way from 1957 to 1971, I found myself yearning to delve into the deeper past. The Blitz years in the East End were extraordinary - filled with loss, togetherness, courage and joy. The bombs fell, the babies kept on coming, and the Sisters kept on going. There will be so much in the prequel for our wonderful, loyal fans, including the appearance of some familiar (if much younger!) faces.”

But that doesn’t mean we’re leaving our current cast behind in 1971 – far from it!

In yet more thrilling news, Neal Street - the makers of Call the Midwife - in development with BBC Film - are producing a Call the Midwife film!! 🤩🤩🤩 🍿🎥🎬

This film will be set overseas in 1972, and feature the characters you love from our existing TV drama! ❤️❤️❤️

Heidi says:

“As the classic Call the Midwife series moves further into the 1970s, it also seems the perfect time for our much-loved regulars to take a short break from Poplar and test themselves in an unfamiliar landscape. The rise in hospital births, and changes in the NHS, have clipped their wings, and this is their chance to take flight and work out what really matters. Whilst the location of the film remains top-secret, I can say it is going to look absolutely fantastic on the big screen!”

The new projects will be written, created and produced by our formidable all-female team: showrunner Heidi Thomas, and executive producers Pippa Harris and Ann Tricklebank, who is also our series producer. All will be helming series 16 together in due course.

Executive Producer Dame Pippa Harris says:

“We have all been delighted by the way audiences have continued to embrace Heidi’s imaginative and moving stories from Nonnatus House. In an increasingly competitive viewing environment not only have our loyal fans stayed with us for 14 years, but they’ve been joined by a new, younger generation who have also fallen in love with our characters and the challenges they face. Emboldened by this warmth and enthusiasm, now feels like the right time to expand our world and take our nuns and midwives onto the big screen with our movie, and back in time with the prequel!”

The news comes as BBC viewing figures confirm Call the Midwife as one of UK TVs most popular programmes. Call the Midwife Series 14 averaged a massive 7.8 million viewers, making it one of the UK’s biggest drama series across all channels and streamers. The 2024 Christmas special was one of the festive period’s most watched drama episodes, with 8.9 million viewers!

Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, says:

“Call the Midwife has been a jewel in the BBC’s crown for well over a decade, and this feels like the perfect time to further expand on the glorious, perfectly realised world that Heidi, Pippa, Annie and the team have created for the show’s millions of passionate and dedicated viewers. Whether you’ve been watching from the very start or joined us for one of the more recent series, this is an incredibly exciting time to be a Call the Midwife fan.”

Eva Yates, Director of BBC Film, adds:

“Call the Midwife has always brilliantly explored the issues and experiences of women across history and it is with great excitement that we are joining Pippa and Heidi in expanding the Midwife universe to bring these wonderful characters onto the big screen”

Maria Bruno Ruiz, PBS Vice President, Program Content Strategy and Scheduling, says:

“Call the Midwife is a PBS treasure, and it has consistently been one of our highest rated programs since debuting to American audiences in September 2012. Our audience has fallen in love with the nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House, celebrating their wins and sharing in their losses, and having a ‘deep cry’ along with them, and we look forward for what is to come…”

SO DO WE!!!

Further details about the Call the Midwife prequel TV series and the movie will be released later this year – so be sure to check back with us as more details are revealed!

04/27/2025

Awesome birth and the driver is the best. Good job, Mama!

04/21/2025

04/09/2025

The natural term for us humans to breastfeed is anywhere between 2 and 7+ years. Some babies stop earlier, some children carry on for longer. It’s thought that the eruption of the permanent set of teeth (losing your milk teeth) influences this timescale.

Many cultures around the world breastfeed until natural term, including many women in the Western world. This age range is only surprising in cultures that interrupt breastfeeding, often without realising it or knowing which norms are biological and which are cultural.

The concentration of fats and proteins increase as the baby grows into a toddler, along with increased levels of antibacterial and antiviral components such as lysozyme, which is an anti-inflammatory, and destroys bacteria.

Lysozyme increases in concentration from about 6 months old, when babies become more independently mobile and everything (toys, sand, twigs, the cats biscuits?) goes straight in the mouth, and keeps increasing after the first year.

The concentration of Lactoferrin also increases over time. Lactoferrin inhibits the growth of some cancerous cells. It also helps our babies to absorb their own iron stores, whilst binding to the iron in our baby’s body which prevents it from being available to harmful microorganisms that need iron to survive. Lactoferrin also kills the bacteria strep mutans, which causes tooth decay and cavities.

Our body’s immune system takes around 6 years to become fully mature, so the support of the protective factors in human milk until our immune system can fully function on its own seems play a part in the timescale of natural term weaning too.

Longer term breastfeeding is also associated with reduced risk of diseases for the mother, including breast cancer.

We acknowledge that many mothers find it difficult to establish breastfeeding in the first place, that breastfeeding is a multi-layered investment on the part of a mother and that natural term feeding might not feel like - or be - a possibility for many.

Or you might simply not want to. We're not here to tell anyone what to do.

We also acknowledge that lack of information about our biology contributes to the lack of support for mothers when they want to establish - or continue - breastfeeding, but cannot find the help they need from people who understand why it matters so much, or what is normal.

Let's continue to turn that around.

More information and references about how remarkable you are at https://human-milk.com/pages/science-of-breastmilk

04/05/2025

Oh Baby, Baby! There's some new tortoise babies at the Philadelphia Zoo for the first time in over 150 years! 🐢

The Zoo's reptile and amphibian team have hatched four critically endangered Galapagos tortoises - the first successful hatching of this species in Philadelphia Zoo history - to parents Mommy and Abrazzo.

Mommy is known as the oldest first-time mom of her species in the world, and these hatchlings are now considered some of the most genetically valuable of their species under known human care on the planet. They'll make their public debut on Wednesday, April 23rd, which is Mommy's 93rd anniversary of her arrival at the Zoo. See more of the new babies now in our story!

📸 Credit: Philadelphia Zoo

04/05/2025

They say ‘it takes a village’—but where is it?

Because some of us are mothering in isolation.
No backup. No check-ins. No meals dropped off when we’re sick.

Just us.
Running on fumes.
Crying in the bathroom between loads of laundry.
Folding tiny clothes while wondering who folds ours.

We are the village.
We are the safety net.
We are the ones holding it all—alone.

And still… we rise.

To the moms doing it without help:
You’re not invisible.
You’re not failing.
You’re just doing what no one prepared you for.