When you think of childbirth, do you immediately think of a “traditional” vaginal birth? Many mothers and birth photographers are working to change the perception that a “normal” birth is a vaginal one.
The International Association of Professional Birth Photographers hosts a photo contest every year to showcase the emotions of childbirth — and one of the powerful photos from last year’s contest shows how a C-section birth can be just as moving as a vaginal birth.
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In the black and white photo, which was an honorable mention in the contest, an infant can be seen being pulled straight from the womb, already crying and taking its first breaths before even fully emerged.
While the photo contest hosted many other powerful images of C-section and vaginal births alike, the C-section photo in question certainly attained the association’s main goal with the contest to show how “birth photography encompasses the tears of joy, the wonder of bringing a new life into the world and celebrates family.”
Not only are birth photographers celebrating C-section births, but so are hospitals, doctors and yes — even mommy bloggers.
And while C-sections have always been a common way to deliver a child, more and more hospitals are embracing a new form of C-section: the “gentle C-section,” which calls for a less surgical experience. For example: the mother is propped up slightly so that she can watch the baby come out, and the baby is even placed on her chest afterwards, just like a vaginal birth, allowing for immediate skin-to-skin contact you wouldn’t see in a typical C-section.
In fact, 20 to 30 percent of the Cesarean births at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston use a gentle C-section.
Dr. Jham Frank Lugo, the founder of a Venezuelan fertility clinic, frequently posts videos of gentle C-sections on Instagram — and in one video that went viral last year, a baby seems to deliver itself, popping its head out of its mother’s womb with almost no effort at all.
In another viral gentle C-section video, a baby boy can be seen “walking himself out of the womb” in a “natural labor.”
One popular blogger and mom Olivia White spoke out against those who say having a C-section is the “easy way out” when it comes to giving birth. In fact, she posted a selfie just hours after giving birth via C-section, featuring her scar front and center while she was lying in her hospital bed.
“This is what you really look like a few hours post c-section,” White wrote in the caption. “To anyone who thinks it’s the easy way out, well try having a 6 inch gash in your abdomen like a gutted shark who had the body parts of the surfer it ate retrieved! […] After [the medication wears off] it’s like you’ve been hit by a bus which then backed over you just to make sure it didn’t miss you the first time!”
