What does a cesarean birth actually look like? These amazing images taken by members of the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers serve as proof of this (IAPBP). The group was started in 2010 by Texas-based Lyndsay Stradtner of Life in Motion Photography, who lives there with her husband and four kids. It currently has 1,400 members from 37 different nations. After Hurricane Katrina ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇd the family’s belongings, Stradtner started taking pictures with a DSLR camera to capture their priceless memories.

She started photographing births in 2007 and established the IAPBP to help clients and photographers communicate. In a blog post on the IAPBP website, Stradtner highlighted how birth photography is sometimes misunderstood. By describing why some families hire a delivery photographer and what the results involve, she disproved common beliefs that birth photography is “gross,” “,” or “ᴅɪsɢᴜsᴛɪɴɢ.”

It combines each of the elements. It tells the tale of a birthday excursion. It involves starting a family. It’s special. And if a family chooses to do that, it is deserving of being captured on camera. SELF was able to get in touch with the IAPBP group and ask them to submit some of their most heartfelt images. The finished product, which showed a variety of birthing experiences, was very stunning. ᴍᴀɴy of the images offered showed C-section deliveries of kids.