Being camera ready in the delivery room

CINCINNATI - There’s a growing trend turning the delivery room into a photo shoot.

Parents-to-be aren't relying on shaky hands and snapshots, they’re calling in the pros. When parents Laura and Dale Sanko welcomed their daughter, they hired a birth photographer.

“We saw it as an opportunity for Dale and I to enjoy our own experience and not have to worry about Dale needing to be a photographer as well as a coach,” said Laura.

Now while you may describe a baby as a beautiful miracle, the delivery is usually seen as a means to an end, and not artistic.

Photographer Melanie Pace, who along with Kelly Smith run Beautiful Beginnings Birth Photography , says every now and again they get a mom who wants a shot of the baby coming out.

“Most moms want us there to capture the raw emotion, not the gore that happens with birth," said Pace.

Pace and Smith are also mothers who actually shot each other’s births. Now they are on call 24/7 for parents-to-be.

Jenny and Dan Hauer’s daughter Kynlee won’t just hear about her birth. Photos of her first few moments are all over her nursery. When talking to people about bringing a photographer into the delivery room the Mt. Healthy couple says there are two standard reactions. Women are at least interested in hearing more, and men are turned off.

Jenny Hauer is quick to point out, "It's not just the baby coming out, it's all the things leading up to it. The happiness afterward."

  It’s those first moments of life that took on special meaning for Aleisa and Bill Yusko of Florence. Twenty-four weeks into pregnancy, the couple found out their baby, Nora Rose, had the often fatal chromosomal disorder, Trisomy 18.

“We did not know if she would make it through delivery and we wanted to capture these moments, this day of what might have been our only time with her,” said Aleisa, who also has a blog about her family's experience.

Nora Rose lived, and months later her parents call the pictures a blessing.

For most parents the decision is much simpler: do you want a photographer up close and very personal? For parents who say yes, the pictures turn that moment into an ironclad memory.

And how do hospitals feel about the photo-op? It appears to be a shade of gray.

While C-sections are typically off limits because that’s a surgery, having one person in the room with a professional grade camera isn’t that much different than a nervous spouse trying to capture the moment with a point-and-shoot.