When it comes to giving birth, most media outlets tend to gloss over the reality.
Whether it’s a movie, TV show, or photograph, a lot of times, the new mom is picture-perfect and smiling, holding a super clean and happy baby. This is why one picture a mom and photographer took has gone viral–because it’s real. The picture also highlights a vital relationship that is often underplayed–one between a nurse and her patient.
On September 2, Katie Lacer of MommaKT Shoots Photography took a photo of a mom who had just given birth–and has been getting help from her nurse at Clark Memorial Hospital in Indiana. On Facebook, Lacer wrote about the moment she captured:
Her nurse didn’t hesitate to kneel in front of her to help her slip into her exceptionally flattering postpartum mesh panties and cold pack after helping her clean up a little bit. It was a quiet moment that I just happened to turn around and see. It wasn’t planned or expected. I was nearing the end of her birth story, and it seemed fitting that I would include the moment as a solid end point.
The picture was then shared by Jill Krause, the mom of four behind the popular blog Baby Rabies, on Facebook.
Krause shared her own birth experience, saying:
I’ll never forget the faces of the nurses who followed me into the bathroom after delivering each baby. That moment when I was so vulnerable, so tired, scared, shaky. My swollen belly deflating, and my modesty long gone. They treated me with such kindness and dignity.
Lacer told Huffington Post that she wants to shed light on care workers and how they are intrinsic to a mom’s wellbeing:
We both want to serve other women, other mothers, and the bottom line is that women helping women always works, always. All of these amazing women and partners that are talking about their postpartum care are opening up a door to share about a part of the birth experience that we often dismiss, and it’s time to acknowledge it.
I have watched almost 100 different birth stories play out. These women ― the certified nurse midwives, labor and delivery and mother/baby nurses ― are powerhouses. They advocate, they support, they celebrate.
Check out more of her exceptional birth and post-birth photography below:
