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Some moms are pretty cool.
But it's not all love and kisses when you're dealing with Mother Nature.
We're counting down the top 10 most extreme moms in the animal kingdom and
comparing them to our own maternal instincts.
Standby for the mother of all programs, when moms are pushed to The
Most Extreme.
Earth is a planet of extremes, extreme places and extreme animals.
But some animals are more extreme than others.
Join us as we countdown to find the most unusual and the most
extraordinary on The Most Extreme.
Kicking off the countdown is one big mother.
The elephant is an extreme mom, an extremely big mom.
She is number 10 in the countdown because no other land animal gives
birth to a bigger baby.
How would you like to be pregnant for a record 22 months?
That's an awful lot of morning sickness.
After that, even the thought of delivering a 90 kilogram baby wouldn't
seem so bad.
Mind you, humans can produce some jumbo sized babies as well.
Back in 1933, this mammoth child made headlines in Australia.
And how old is the little darling?
Nine months.
And what does the little mite weigh?
68 pounds.
Both the same age, but the gentleman on the right is exactly four times
heavier.
But the biggest baby in history was born to the stars of a traveling
circus.
Anna Swan Buren was one big mama.
Standing over 2.4 meters tall, she was five centimeters taller than her giant
husband.
So it's no wonder that in 1979 this elephantine couple produced a son who
weighed in at an eye watering 10.8 kilograms.
The biggest baby on earth was born the size of an average six month old
child.
The trouble was there were no forceps large enough to deliver such a giant
baby and sadly he only lived 11 hours.
But even the average American baby is enormous if you compare the body
weight of their mothers.
When an elephant weighing about three and a half thousand kilograms gives
birth to a 90 kilogram baby, it's about 140th of her body weight.
Compare that to when a 60 kilogram woman gives birth to a three kilogram
baby.
Since that's actually 120th of her body weight, a human baby is
relatively speaking, twice the size of a new born elephant which only
confirms what every human mom has always expected.
But even if proportionately elephants don't have the biggest babies in the
world, these moms are still extreme.
That's because in elephant families, it's a case of mother knows best.
In this matriarchal society, the most extreme mom is actually a grandmother.
The herd is made up of her daughters and granddaughters.
All the males are forced out at an early age staying single or joining
bachelor groups.
With so many mothers in the herd, it's no wonder that baby elephants are
constantly showered with affection.
So spare a thought for the baby of our next contender for there's one extreme
mom that stands up to 90% of her life, asleep!
The trees of the Australian outback are home to number nine in our
countdown of most extreme moms.
For when it comes to devotion, there's one animal that scales new heights.
It's the koala.
She may spend up to 22 hours each day sleeping, but this is one mother who
will go to extreme lengths to look after her baby.
But it's not her climbing ability that makes the koala number nine in the
countdown.
It's her extreme digestion that really safeguards her baby.
The koala is one of the pickiest eaters in the world.
It only eats the highly poisonous leaves of eucalyptus trees.
It manages to survive on this deadly diet thanks to a digestive system
packed with special bacteria that detoxify the leaves.
Koala babies are not born with the bacteria, so koala moms have to pass
the bugs on.
And they do that by making a tasty treat of bacteria filled droppings.
A koala baby may look sweet, but it's got a real potty mouth.
No wonder some moms have trouble getting kids to eat their greens.
Life would be so much easier if we could understand what our babies were
trying to tell us.
And that's why here in Washington DC, these babies have gone to school.
They're learning to talk not with their voices, but their hands.
Some of these babies are only nine months old and yet they're learning
how to communicate with their mothers thanks to a program called Signing
With Kids run by co-founder Tegan Corradino.
Well, we're teaching parents and children how to communicate with each
other using American Sign Language.
For example, if we teach them to use more instead of waiting until they can
articulate more and the benefit is that it eases frustration for
everybody.
It's a shame that koala bear babies haven't learned sign language.
They may be able to communicate just how much they love feeding on their
mother's droppings.
We've delivered the countdowns first two contenders.
But coming up, there will be no hiding from moms that just have so many
children they just don't know what to do.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
Be warned; playing with the next contender in our countdown of extreme
moms can be bad for your health.
Fighting her way into number eight in the countdown is the alligator.
She is definitely deadly especially when she is near the compost heap she
likes to call a nest.
It's easy to believe she has no maternal instincts at all especially
when her babies end up between those massive teeth.
At first glance, a pile of rotting vegetation may seem like a poor excuse
for a nest.
But it's this decaying compost that creates enough heat to incubate
alligator eggs.
This extreme mom doesn't have to touch her eggs for two months.
The only trouble is she makes quite sure that nobody else touches them
either.
So for these researchers, checking the temperature of the eggs is a risky
business.
They know that if the temperature in the nest is less than 31 degrees, all
the eggs will be females.
If it's above 33 degrees, they'll all be males.
For these conservation biologists, life would be so much easier if
finding out the sex of the babies was as simple as getting a sonogram.
A medical probe emitting high frequency sound waves creates sound
pictures of an unborn baby.
But thanks to new sonogram technology, it's now possible to get a three
dimensional womb with a view.
Using special 3D ultrasound Chicago's Dr. Jason Birnholz can paint a picture
not only of an unborn baby, but even the details of the child's face.
It's extreme technology that may just prove to be a lifesaver.
We want to know is a fetus healthy or sick.
This is the primary question of obstetrics, so we've come to looking
at the face because it's after all an organ of communication.
And what we want to know is can you identify somebody who is telling you
that they are happy and serene in their environment or that in some way
it is an inadequate environment and they are troubled.
If they're sick or distressed, we want to get them out as soon as possible;
they'll do better in the outside world than they will inside.
Alligator mothers also use sound to find out if her babies are ready for
the outside world.
When she hears muffled cries coming from inside the compost heap, it's
time to start digging.
The alligator is number eight in the countdown because she's not eating her
babies.
She is carefully carrying them to safety in an armor plated mouth.
This extreme mom is actually the world's biggest bodyguard.
Who said you have to have warm blood to be warmhearted?
When it comes to motherly love, there's no doubt that baby alligators
are sitting pretty.
So far we've seen gator moms getting a real mouthful, and koala moms getting
a little rest.
But you'll be getting a whole lot more because coming up is a mom with a baby
that's unbearably cute.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
Number seven in our countdown of most extreme moms lives in a most extreme
environment.
It's the polar bear, an extreme mom in more ways than one.
Just getting pregnant can be difficult because polar bears are loners.
Even finding a mate can be tricky.
One male was recorded tracking a female's paw prints for more than 100
kilometers.
But a male polar bear is only after one thing.
Once he has mated, the female is left all on her own and her hard work has
just begun.
She is number seven in the countdown because she has to find enough food to
almost double her weight.
If she doesn't put on at least 180 kilos of fat her body will simple
reabsorb the fetus.
All that extra weight is essential because she won't eat again for over
two months for when the arctic winter arrives she disappears.
Inside her snow cave, the female falls into a deep sleep.
She won't wake up for anything, not even to have a baby.
It's a nice trick.
So it's no wonder doctors once tried to help women almost sleep through
their labor too.
Thanks to a cocktail of painkillers, moms became so relaxed that sometimes
they couldn't remember anything about the birth of their child.
While the deliveries were painless, most moms went on to suffer postnatal
depression.
So the twilight sleep treatment was abandoned.
Giving birth would be so much easier if we were like polar bears.
Why bother waking up if relatively speaking, our baby was the same size
as a polar bear cub.
A half ton polar bear gives birth to a half kilo baby.
That would be like us giving birth to a baby smaller than a golf ball.
No wonder; polar bears don't bother waking up.
A polar bear cub is blind, toothless and very, very cute.
It will stay with its sleepy mother for 10 weeks feeding off her fat which
has been converted into an energy rich milk.
But in this extreme landscape, the polar bear mom still has to work hard
bringing up her baby.
For the next two years, her cub will barely leave her side.
The polar bear maybe one of the coolest moms in the countdown, but
she's till only number seven because coming up next we really turn up
the heat.
Our next extreme mom earned her position honestly even though she is a
cheetah.
The cheetah is one of the hardest working moms on the African plains
because she has up to six hungry mouths to feed.
That means she has to hunt everyday to make enough milk to feed her babies.
But believe it or not, that's the easy part.
There's no cheetah child care on the plains and after only six weeks, her
cubs start helping her hunt.
And it doesn't get any easier when they're teenagers.
The cheetah is number six in the countdown because for almost two
years, this extreme mom has to put up with awkward teenagers that spend the
day lounging around the plains or worse, trying to help on the hunt.
The only way the cubs can learn is by watching their mother in action,
slowly stalking her victim until she's close enough to unleash her explosive
speed.
It's an exciting time for the cubs.
In fact, it's too exciting.
He's broken too soon and blown mom's cover.
One hunt in six will end in similar disaster because bringing up four kids
isn't easy and not just for cheetahs.
Meet a most extreme human mom.
This year Kelly Vlahov and her husband will change over 9000 diapers, make
1275 lunches and give 1040 goodnight kisses.
That's because Kelly has quadruplets.
In America today the chances of a pregnant woman having a multiple birth
have never been higher, thanks to the growing use of assisted reproductive
techniques.
In fact, the odds of having twins are one in 90. But if having two babies is
difficult, just imagine how much work is involved in looking after
quadruplets.
The hardest thing is just that your day is so constant.
There is never a break, there's always something that needs to be done, you
know whether it's tending to them directly getting this, you know their
food, drink, changing diapers, clothing.
You know, it's a lot to handle having one child and then you multiply that
times four.
So I would say that's probably the hardest thing is just making
everything work and trying to keep things organized.
But there are some things that make it all worthwhile.
The "I love you mommy," that's the best.
And the fact that it's, you know, times four, that's awesome and just,
you know, you'd look at them and you're so proud of them because
everyday they grow and they learn new things whether it's, you know, they
come up from nursery school singing a new song, you know, it's just their
intelligence is amazing.
Everything about them is pretty much amazing.
The cheetah mom is also amazing for as soon as her cubs have learnt to hunt,
she leaves to start a new family of fast runners, but slow learners.
Well, the cheetah is living proof that a mother's work is never done, she is
still only number six in the countdown.
For coming up, is an extreme mom that builds 30,000 beds in her lifetime and
a mother that spends two months locked in the house with her children.
That's coming up next on The Most Extreme.
On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, hidden deep in the rainforest, number
five in our countdown of most extreme moms is a real swinger.
Meet the orangutan.
For the ultimate high-rise mom spends her entire life far above the dangers
on the forest floor.
But hanging around in trees isn't easy because this mom is the ultimate
homemaker, for just like a human mother, there is always work to be
done around the house.
But when it comes to homemaking, not even the busiest mom is a match for
the orangutan.
She is number five in the countdown because she builds a new home every
single night.
That means in the course of her life, she'll build from scratch more than
30,000 homes.
At the end of the day, a busy mom has no time to hang around.
As high as 18 meters above the ground, she starts working on her nest.
By bending over branches she makes a firm base and then tucks in the
smaller twigs to make a springy mattress.
The finished sleeping platform is so safe that this extreme mom can finally
take the weight off her arms and spent some quality time with her baby.
The orangutan is a nomad, restlessly swinging through the forest.
Its life is a constant search for new food and for a new tree to call home
for the night.
But if you thought this mom was an extreme homemaker, just wait till you
meet the ultimate stick in the mud coming up next in the countdown.
The island of Sulawesi in Southeast Asia is home to the most extreme stay
at home mom on the planet.
Few mothers spend more time literally stuck in the house than the animal
that has sealed its position at number four in the countdown.
Welcome to the world of the female red-knobbed hornbill.
For two months, this devoted mom will be imprisoned on her nest inside the
trunk of a hollow tree.
But there's a good reason for her confinement.
Sulawesi may look like a peaceful paradise for a nesting hornbill, but
the local monitor lizards are much more than just social climbers.
So to keep out hungry neighbors, the hornbill mom seals herself inside a
hollow tree.
She is number four in the countdown because her building material is made
from her own droppings.
It sets like smelly concrete leaving only a tiny window to the outside
world where her mate is having a lovely time roaming around and
stuffing himself full of fruit.
Luckily, he keeps his mate well fed with a steady supply of fruit leaving
her to concentrate on laying her egg and raising their chick.
The only problem about living sealed in a tree trunk is that what goes in
must come out.
The steady diet of figs does wonders for the bowels, so this extreme mom
and her baby quickly learn the techniques of basic nest hygiene.
Human moms have had to find different techniques.
In Elizabethan times, most babies were treated to a fresh cloth diaper once
every four days.
Luckily today we know a little more about hygiene.
But with our increased understanding came a huge increase in laundry.
Washing and drying about 10 cloth diapers a day isn't easy.
So it's no wonder that it was a woman that created one of the greatest
inventions of the 20th century.
Driven to desperation by cloth diaper hell, Idaho housewife, Marion Donovan
developed the world's first disposable diaper.
Disposable diapers have revolutionized baby care.
Now they're so popular that the average baby goes through an
impressive 3000 diapers a year.
That means in American alone, every single day babies fill seven and a
half thousand tons of diapers.
So every day, America is getting a pile of dirty diapers as tall as a 10
storey building.
The female hornbill may not have to worry about diapers.
But after 60 days sealed in a tree with her baby, she's finally had
enough.
The chick will stay in the nest.
But for now this doting mom finally gets to spread her wings and fly the
coop.
The red-knobbed hornbill is a truly extreme mom.
After all, can you imagine spending two months sealed in a small room with
your kids?
We've seen moms who can't wait for bills to arrive while others go ape
over beds.
But even the fastest mothers in the world are no match for the next
heavyweight contenders because some moms really know how to throw their
weight around.
That's next on The Most Extreme.
On the islands of the Subantarctic, number three on our countdown of
extreme moms lives a soap opera life.
Huge guys will fight for her.
She'll live in a harem, lose immense amounts of weight, have a child and
then run away to sea, all this in one blockbuster season for the elephant
seal.
The show begins when our extreme mom comes ashore to meet her leading man.
He's got a big reputation mainly because he is at least four times her
size.
But she is no lightweight.
On a good day, she can weigh about the same as six refrigerators tipping the
scales at nearly 800 kilos.
It's not easy being this big especially when you have to put up
with your costars extreme halitosis.
For this extreme mom, life really is a beach.
All this lying around may look easy, but how would you like to be pregnant
for 11 months of every year.
That means 11 months of doing nothing by eating.
She needs to put on a kilo a day so that she gets enough blubber to play
the part of mother to her pup.
Such extreme weight gain doesn't worry these big mamas unlike some human.
For some pregnant mothers, it's a big concern.
Enjoy your food, but don't overeat.
Unless you aren't careful, you would become needlessly overweight.
Although pregnant women may feel the size of elephant seals, on average
they'll only gain about 13 kilos during pregnancy.
And about nine kilograms of that extra weight is lost in the first month
after having the baby.
But that's nothing compared to an elephant seal mom.
She is number three in the countdown because in the month after having her
pup, she loses a third of her body weight.
That's nearly 300 kilos.
All that fat she put on before the birth gets converted into milk, lots
of milk.
She loses nine kilograms every day she feeds her pup.
That's because elephant seal milk has 15 times as much fat in it as human
breast milk and about 25 times more fat than cow milk.
But then cows are more interested in quantity than quality.
A commercial dairy cow yields about 14 liters of milk a day.
It would take 25 nursing human mothers to produce as much milk as a single
dairy cow.
But these elephant seal pups don't care where their milk comes from so
long as there's lots of it.
In the four weeks since their birth, they've got four times heavier and
their poor moms haven't eaten a thing.
But now the soap opera is coming to an end and it's time to eat.
After a month of dramatic devotion to duty, the pups are big enough to look
after themselves.
But if you think the elephant seal gives her all for her pup, just wait
till you see the sacrifices made by our next extreme contender.
The next contender in our countdown of most extreme moms may have to look
after an incredible 50,000 babies.
She'll need every one of her eight arms.
And in the end, it will require the ultimate sacrifice.
Racing in to number two in the countdown is the octopus.
She lives her life at a furious pace mainly because she has to pack
everything into one short year.
Going from egg to adult in only 12 months means eating a lot.
And finally she has to find a secure place where she can lay eggs of her
own away from the ever menacing cod.
She looks for a layer that she can easily defend because the cod is never
far behind.
And then she lays her eggs, up to 50,000 of them
They take some looking after.
She has to regularly squirt water over them and give them a gentle wash with
her tentacles.
It's a full-time job which means she has no time to eat.
It will be 40 days before her children leave home.
So these extreme moms get really hungry.
A starving octopus has been known to eat her own arms rather than leave her
precious brood unprotected.
An octopus mom has little reason to trust in cod.
He'll steal her eggs if he can.
The octopus has 50,000 good reasons to fight him off.
But back in the 30s, some extreme human mothers had half a million
reasons to make babies.
When eccentric Canadian lawyer Charles Millar wanted to see just what extreme
things people would do for money, he left half a million dollars in his
will to the Toronto woman who had the most babies in the 10 years following
his death.
A decade later and four families had tied for first place with nine
children each.
Hello, I have to go back to Toronto and make things easy.
But meanwhile, a hundred or more children have come into the world
under the will as the Canadian court has the problem of dividing the money
for accommodating the will as a grading under the Canadian standard of
public moral.
But there's nothing wrong with the morals of the octopus mom.
Her babies are ready to hatch thanks to her extraordinary devotion.
But this is one mother who will never suffer from the emptiness syndrome.
She is number two in the countdown because there is a price to pay for
all her hard work.
She may have lost her babies, but her old enemies are back and because she
is completely exhausted she no longer has the strength to fight them off.
But even the octopus's tragic death is no match for the horror that befalls
the most extreme mother in the countdown.
We've seen the nine contenders.
They're the best of the best.
Only one animal is a more extreme mothering machine.
It's number one and it's coming up next on The Most Extreme.
There are some real psychos in the natural world and the number one
animal in the countdown gives birth to the worst of them all.
The most extreme mom in the world is the sea louse.
Having kids is the last thing she should do.
From the moment the male sea louse lures her into his layer, things go
terribly wrong.
Once he has got her in his clutches, there's no escape.
She is sealed inside his burrow with up to 25 other females in a harem of
horror.
Now they're all pregnant, but these extreme moms have no reason to look
forward to mother's day.
She is number one in the countdown because dozens of her psycho children
have been eating her from the inside out.
She dies as the withered husk of her body splits apart unlashing her brood
of little Norman Bates into an unsuspecting ocean.
This extraordinary mother has made the ultimate sacrifice for her children.
So there can be no doubt that when it comes to motherhood, the female sea
louse really is The Most Extreme.