April the pregnant giraffe

Have you heard about April the Giraffe? A few weeks ago on Facebook, they (Animal Adventure Park) posted that she was going to have a baby “any moment” so people went to the Facebook site to hopefully catch her in labor (yes they plan to show the birth live). Well here we are three weeks later and no baby. I think it’s brilliant marketing on their behalf …. Create tremendous excitement, have a product to sell, promote it…and now wait. In that time, they’ve raised thousands of dollars towards their park, they’ve created and sold t-shirts, and they’ve taught people about giraffe’s.

As many people are saying, we wish that hospitals would be more patient with birth, just like people are being patient with April. No one is rushing in to induce this giraffe, they are waiting for nature to work it’s magic and soon enough the baby will be born. No birth interventions are necessary. Yet in our society, women are induced, babies are too big, babies are past their due date, women are progressing too slowly, and there are a whole bunch of other reasons to induce and/or do C-sections. Maybe our hospitals and birth provider should take some lessons from this animal park & giraffe.

And on a fun note, did you know that giraffe’s have seven neck vertebrae? Yes, just like humans have seven bones that make up their neck, so does a giraffe. As long as their neck is, they still only have seven bones. Can you imagine how big those bones are? I wonder if anyone has ever adjusted a giraffe’s neck? I know plenty of animals have been adjusted, I wonder who has adjusted a giraffe. Maybe I’ll add that on my goal list – to adjust a giraffe someday.

Until then, join the April watch and find out when she has her baby….