What I Know About Caesarean Birth — From Both Sides of the Camera

I had a caesarean myself.

I remember the specific kind of pain that nobody quite prepares you for — not the operation itself, but the days after. Standing up. Lying down. Anything that asked anything of my stomach muscles. I had been someone who trained, who moved through the world easily, and suddenly I couldn't sit up without thinking about it first.

My scar healed slowly. For a long time there was no feeling there at all. My husband talked me into trying leeches, of all things — and somehow, it helped. I still don't fully understand why. I just know that I needed something, and that was the thing that worked.

I tell you this because when I photograph a mother recovering from a caesarean, I am not guessing at what she's going through. I know it.

Years later, I was on the other side of it in a different way.

My daughter was in labour for three days. A home birth that became, in the end, an unplanned caesarean — her baby was simply too big. I didn't sleep for those three days. I have the data on my watch to prove it, which still makes me laugh a little.

I was there when they brought her and my grandson back from theatre. I heard his first cry. I photographed him, and the feeding, and her, and her husband — not a single pose, nothing arranged. Just the tenderness. The relief. The tears that come after something that hard is finally over.

I stayed with her for several weeks afterward.

So when I photograph a newborn session for a mother who has had a caesarean, here is what changes:

I bring the pillows. I roll the blankets into the right shapes before she even has to ask. I find the positions that don't ask anything of her stomach — propped against the headboard, baby resting high on her chest, nothing that requires reaching or twisting or holding her own weight in a particular way.

I move slowly, and I let her move slower.

There is no part of the session where I need her to lie a certain way for the photograph. The photograph adjusts to her — never the other way round.

Recovery from a caesarean is real, physical, and it takes longer than anyone tells you it will. If you're in those first weeks and thinking about a newborn session, I'd love to talk it through with you — what's comfortable, what isn't, and how we make it work for exactly where you are.

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