One of the most common questions I get asked by my clients is about the safety precautions I take with newborns. While babies are pretty resilient, the newborns I work with are, after all, humans as young as a week old. There are some pretty specific steps I take to ensure that my newborn clients are safe, healthy, and comfortable. While the topic of newborn safety can be anxiety-inducing, let me calm the way with some soothing newborn photos of a special girl who was carried via surrogate. And had to travel across state lines days after being born to be united with Mom and Dad.
Feeling better yet? Let’s dive in.
First and foremost, I’m fully vaccinated. I come in contact with lots of people and their kids and babies every week. I shake lots of hands and hold lots of infants. Since their immune systems haven’t had a chance to boot up yet, I make sure that I won’t transfer over any of those nasty illnesses that they’re not prepared to fight yet. Additionally, I never handle babies when I’m sick or when my kids have been sick. I’d much rather reschedule than risk compromising the wellness of a client’s newborn. The inconvenience of rescheduling is nothing compared to a sick infant. I don’t want to put my clients or their babies through any of that. Even when I’m healthy, I keep antiseptic hand gel on hand at all times and use it regularly. Not taking any risks here!
I also try hard to ensure that the photography session is a safe one. I never put the babies I work with in a compromising position. This means that shots that look a little questionable. “Would she really just let that baby just hang out on the top of that stuffed animal? That camera has to be at least 6 feet away, how would she get to the baby if it fell? Oh, won’t somebody think of the children!?” – are actually composites that I put together in Photoshop.
A good example of this is the very popular shot of the baby with its head in its hands, as in the image below. This is not something newborns can actually physically hold on their own. I invite you to get on the ground and recreate this position yourself. You’ll see exactly how many muscle groups it takes to maintain this pose. These muscle groups are not developed in infants this young. And the baby’s head,d in particular, must be supported the whole time. This make sense, right? Most babies can’t even lift their head up until about a month or so. Much less maintain that amount of weight for a long period of time. In these shots, Mom or an assistant is actually holding her baby’s head steady with hands on either side of her head. I remove them in Photoshop later.
Many inexperienced photographers sometimes try to create these poses without proper support for the baby. Which at the very least, can be uncomfortable for the newborn, if not just simply dangerous. Any shots where a baby is posed on top of something where there is risk of them rolling off the edge, a parent should ALWAYS be there with a hand on the baby to ensure that they’ll stay put. Since I work with infants so frequently, I’m able to tell immediately when babies are uncomfortable with a pose. If a parent wants a shot where the baby will be uncomfortable or at risk of hurting themselves, then I simply won’t do it.
I DO NOT lift babies up in slings. If a parent wants this look, I can create it using Photoshop to combine different images where the baby is actually supported at all times. But I will NEVER put a baby in a sling and lift it up off the ground without some sort of support underneath it. Some inexperienced photographers don’t realize that their babies should actually have hands or a pillow or something under the baby and will just sling ’em up and hang them from a tree or whatever. Which is SO SCARY! I think there is this false sense of security around this type of pose. It can seem like the baby is supported from beneath by the fabric and that your knot or hook or however you’re hanging the sling is secure. But it’s a newborn. Better not to take any risk.
With two kids of my own and 12 years of baby posing under my belt, it isn’t a brag to say that I’m very experienced with working with babies. You learn a thing or two or twenty after all that time. So relax. Let me hold and soothe your baby while you chill out on my couch and take a few minutes for yourself. It’ll be worth it, and you’ll get some great baby photos out of it, too.