Behind the Lens for the First Seconds of Life

I love French photographer Christian Berthelot's exhibit "Cesar," photographs of babies just seconds old.

Says the author of the Huffington Post article where I first read about the exhibit:

"Far from the clichés and platitudes, I wanted to show us, as we are when we are born," photographer Christian Berthelot explains in his artist statement. Far from the pristine images of rosy-cheeked babies we're often used to digesting, Berthelot's raw photographs capture babies as almost alien creatures -- naked, screaming and drenched in bodily juices.

Berthelot is indeed a talented photographer, but these particular images are dear to my heart because his photo subjects were born via c-section.

As a woman who's given birth to both my biological children via c-section, it upsets me how much the debate about c-sections overshadows the miracle it produces, the same miracle a vaginal birth produces - a new human being.  Finally there's Berthelot's work to celebrate babies born via c-section, a procedure the photographer's wife, who delivered their son via c-section, described as a beautiful birth. 

I got my first glimpses of Oliver and Soren relatively quickly after birth, but only after they had been wrapped up in blankets.  I never got to see them as Berthelot saw his subjects.  What a gift he has been able to provide these families.

You can view some of the imagines from "Cesar" in this Huffington Post article or this Slate article.