Cat Hears Baby Crying And Runs To Help And Soothe The Child With Purring And Cuddles

Mar 02, 2020 by apost team

Most people who know cats know how good mothers they tend to make. They care for a whole litter of kittens with deep and dedicated attention, making sure their babies are comforted. From this video, it seems that instinct is powerful enough to extend to other species. It features a small tabby and white cat soothing a crying baby lying on a bed with soft calming noises and gentle touches. Originally posted in October 2015, it's just as adorable today as it was then and may make you into a cat person even if you weren't one before.

The video shows a girl, very likely an older sister, with the cat. When she lets the cat go, it absolutely races to the baby, jumps onto the bed, and lies down next to the baby’s head. It mews and trills quietly, as if saying “There, there,” and the baby soon quiets down.

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You might ask yourself why the cat would respond in such a way to something that's not a kitten? In 2014, Canadian scientists conducted a study that indicates many species of mammals instinctively respond to distress cries from young animals – including human babies. The researchers worked with wild deer and played recordings of young animals in distress, and both mule deer and white-tail deer would race to the rescue. It didn’t matter if the cries were being made by kittens, fawns, human infants, or even bats, the deer would run to the source of the cries to try and help like this adorable little kitty does.

The researchers had a theory that any mother animal would respond to the distress cries of any baby animal – even if it didn’t belong to their species. The scientists also noticed that the deer would ignore other noises like bird song or coyotes yipping, even though they were at around the same pitch as the distress cries. They could tell the difference.

Earlier studies had demonstrated that dogs will also respond to a crying baby and try to help. The researchers had speculated the dogs’ behavior was due to millennia of domestication – until they saw wild deer reacting in a similar fashion. Like dogs and deer, cats are mammals. They thus have the same instincts to help baby animals.

Generations ago, no right-thinking parent would have allowed a cat near a baby. People used to believe that cats were malevolent creatures that would kill babies by sucking out their breath or even soul. As per the superstition, the cat would be drawn by the smell of milk around a baby’s mouth and try to inhale the smell. In the process, they would suck out the baby’s breath and kill it.

Any cat lover today can tell you this is a myth, as documented by NannySavvy. It even appears in this video that the baby unintentionally pulls the cat's fur, and yet the caring kitty does nothing but snuggle in closer.

Naturally, a cat could unintentionally smother a baby by lying on their face. A prudent parent should never let any animal near a baby without supervision. The baby in the video was perfectly safe, as their older sister was also in the room and the person taking the video clearly knew that their matronly feline was nothing but a positive influence for the baby. By the end, you can even see how the baby is clearly calming and how attentive the cat remains.

Did this video satisfy your daily dose of cuteness? Have any of your pets tried to soothe a crying baby? Please tell us your comments in the space below.