Kangaroo Pouch: How Do Kangaroos Actually Give Birth?

You can easily conjure up an image of a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. Their little heads stick out, taking in the world while they’re safely enveloped near their mother’s womb. But is the pouch where these babies are born? How do kangaroos actually give birth? Let’s find out!

How Do Kangaroos Actually Give Birth?

Baby kangaroos are called joeys. They hang out in their mother’s pouch for the first several months of life. But is that where they originate? Not at all. Kangaroos give birth to their newborns via their birth canal. The mother is responsible not just for giving birth but also for keeping her pouch clean for her newborn. After the baby kangaroo is born, it moves independently to find the pouch and get inside.

Female kangaroos have two vaginas and when they get pregnant for the first time, a third one forms. This third vagina provides a more direct path for the newborn to come out of. The third vagina facilitates subsequent pregnancies; all births after the initial one use the same path.

Preparing for Birth

Mother kangaroos prepare themselves for birth by ensuring their pouch is clean for their newborn. This pouch keeps newborn kangaroos protected and prevents illnesses. It’s a haven where the newborn kangaroo continues to develop. The mother cleans the pouch by licking it. They also ensure a clean area around the birth canal. This grooming intensifies when a kangaroo is about to give birth.

After all of the intense grooming, a kangaroo knows to get into the appropriate position to give birth. Typically, this looks like a female kangaroo leaning back against a tree, using its tail for balance. This position allows the mother kangaroo to give birth while also allowing her access to clean the area of all fluids.

The Kangaroo Birth Process

When a female kangaroo is in the birth position, she is ready to give birth. The newborn kangaroo emerges from her birth canal and immediately starts an upward climb to its mother’s pouch. Newborns are tiny (only two centimeters long!) and they’re born without any fur. They’re blind as well but they have a strongly developed olfactory system (with wide open nostrils!) that helps guide them to their mother’s pouch. When they’re without fur, they’re known as “pinkies.”

The process for a joey to get from the birth canal up into the pouch takes anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 minutes. Only its two front limbs are usable at this stage. Its legs are undeveloped, appearing as mere stumps at this point. While the newborn is making this trek up toward the pouch, the female cleans up any blood and fluids that have spilled out of her birth canal and licks after her newborn as it makes its way up through her fur.

The Pouch Life: The First Months

When a newborn joey has reached its mother’s pouch, it enters, gets cozy, and immediately starts suckling on one of her teats. Here, the newborn gets the sustenance it needs to continue developing. Most of the developmental process happens while the joey is safely encased within its mother’s pouch.

The joey remains in the pouch for about six or seven months before making its first trip to the outside world. At that point, it starts to grow fur. When it makes its way to the pouch, it weighs only 0.04 ounces. When it emerges, it has gained several pounds, reaching about eight or nine pounds on average.

Joeys remain dependent on their mothers for their first two years of life. However, they get evicted from the pouch long before this so that the mother kangaroo has room for a new pinky. On average, joeys stay in the pouch for eight to 11 months. But this varies. Exactly how long a joey stays in the pouch depends on the kangaroo species.

When Do Joeys Leave the Pouch?

Eastern grey kangaroos don’t leave the pouch for the first time until around eight or 10 months. However, they return to the pouch for another month or so before permanently exiting the pouch around nine or 11 months.

Red kangaroos stay in the pouch for six months before exiting to roam about. Then they return and leave the pouch permanently around the eighth or ninth month. Quokka kangaroos leave the pouch a little earlier the first time, around the fifth or sixth-month mark. Soon after, around the sixth or seventh-month mark, they leave permanently.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Andrew Coleman