Bring baby in for a deeply nurturing session. This is a slow time. A time when it’s more important to delight in your exquisite newborn than anything else. I want to see you nurture. The way your hands delicately hold and cradle the small perfect babe you created. The skin, that’s new and the skin that has loved.
Missoula Midwife- Ashley Hinton-Sharp- of Heart- Strong Midwifery
Once the baby is born she is still getting oxygenated blood from the placenta. The beautiful placenta pulses and continues functioning for 5-15 minutes on average giving time for our sweet baby to take her first breath. Once she does that – lung expansion occurs, fluid is pushed out of the lungs. the ductus arteriosis and foramen ovale shut and blood flows through a path of least resistance much like adult hearts. I call the going from fish to frog. This all occurs quite rapidly, the baby turning from blue to pink usually within a breath or two, sometimes longer. Often extremities can remain blue and it is of no concern. The flushing of blue to pink is magical thing to see. It happens as quickly as a rainbow appears or disappears. I will admit I almost never see the actual act of the chameleon like switch as I’m holding the job down on many fronts in this moment but if you are lucky enough to catch it…it’s quite amazing, a miracle. It is usually the moment where my own heart falls in comfort of reassurance, hope and promise.
I provide a visual connection to birth for a woman, her family, her baby and if she chooses her community.
I hand back to the birth warrior, raw visceral validation, a story to celebrate and heal by. Documentation to point ones finger at and see the shimmer in the growing babe’s eye.
I cannot simple define the why of a birth photographer; myself.
I hold space for the birth mama and family, I photograph in the most challenging of light on the most intense physiological female journey. Through my lens I look for the supple transformation of birthing skin, the endearing love of a partner and sharing of primal birth perseverance and surrender.
I am your storyteller. ~ Jenna Nord Birth Photographer-
