How to Handle Pregnancy Loss as a Maternity and Newborn Photographer
Hello friends, welcome back to Beyond Natural Light Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Sandra Coan. I want to talk to you today about something that honestly is really hard to talk about. And I have been debating on whether or not I should even do this podcast for several days, but I think it's important. I'm going to record it.
Trigger warning, I am going to talk about pregnancy loss.
If that isn't something you want to hear this morning, then don't listen to this episode because it's a hard thing to talk about and it's a hard thing to listen to. The reason why I'm having this conversation is this is a podcast that is for photographers primarily for maternity, newborn, and family photographers. I'm going to have been in business for 25 years coming up here in January. What I know is if you work as a maternity newborn family photographer, and if you've been doing it long enough, you are going to have clients who have experienced or will experience pregnancy loss or infant loss at some point. And it's hard. When it happens, when it comes up in your business, I think we all need to be prepared and know how to talk about it and how to support them.
I'm already getting emotional. This is going to be a hard conversation for me to have.
So why now? Why am I talking about this now?
Early in my career before I had children, right when I very first started, I had a really devastating situation with a client who lost their newborn. At that time, I was doing what I thought you were supposed to do as a photographer to be responsible. I would have, people who would sign a contract and, and pay a deposit, and that deposit was non-refundable. I'll never forget that situation because the father of that baby called me and explained the situation. He was telling me couldn't make the session and was asking for a refund, and it was just gut-wrenching.
I was really struck in that moment by how ridiculous it was of me as a business owner to be putting somebody in a position where they would have to call me and tell me what was going on and ask for money back in the middle of this tragedy. It just was awful.
I decided at that point that I wasn't going to take deposits anymore. So I didn't, for a really long time. People would send me an email and I would book them no deposit because I just never wanted to put somebody in that situation ever again. Over the years, people would miss their appointments and things would happen sometimes for really tragic reasons and sometimes for not. But I just made that decision for myself, for my business, that a missed appointment here and there, the inconvenience, and the loss of income that caused me was just not that important in the grand scheme of things.
I didn't want to put people in a position where they would have to call and have that conversation with me.
About a year ago, I changed up my booking system to do automatic booking and on the platform I'm using in order to book the session they need to pay a deposit. So I've started that again, and I'm really rethinking that policy again because a couple of days ago I found out that a client of mine who had just booked her maternity session, lost her baby pretty far into her pregnancy. She reached out to me and we had that whole conversation again. I want to talk about how we handle these situations in our businesses.
How do we support our clients? How do we support ourselves?
I already gave a trigger warning, but also I want you to know that normally when I'm recording a podcast, I either write it out or I have notes. I haven't done any of that. I was sitting in my meditation this morning and going back over do I even record this? Is it my place to record this? And I've just decided that it's really important. I'm just going off the cuff, so I'm going to apologize right away if this sounds rambly, but I wanna talk about it. A few things that I wanna talk about are policies, responsibility, and safe posing.
One of the reasons why I'm recording this now is I had an opportunity to talk to this woman who lost her baby for a long time.
We sat and talked and she experienced preterm labor that she didn't realize that she was in. And by the time they caught it, it was too late and the baby came too early. I also experienced preterm labor when I was pregnant with my twins, I've also experienced pregnancy loss. All of this is something that I personally, as a human have experienced. Preterm labor is so common and so many women experience it. Nobody ever talks about it. You're not prepared. You don't know what it feels like. When I was talking to her yesterday about what happened, she said to me, I wish I had known, I wish somebody had talked about it. I wish I knew what the symptoms were. They're kind of vague, but I didn't know and I want to tell as many people as I can about it now to warn them.
That's what really struck me because I have a platform where I can talk about it.
That's why we're here today. Let's just dive in. I'm gonna try to keep it together. As I said, I also have personal experience with this, so this is a hard thing for me to talk about. So just a little patience. So first of all, pregnancy loss, friends, is really, really, really common. And like I said, if you've been in business long enough, you are going to have clients who've experienced it at some point.
So what does that mean for us as photographers?
It seems like such a weird thing to be talking about as a photographer on a photography podcast, because I know I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse. I'm not qualified to have medical conversations, obviously.
But I am a human, like I said, who's experienced this. I'm a woman who's been through this, but also I've been doing this long enough that I know that it comes up. Statistically, we know that pregnancy loss is really common. I don't have the stats off the top of my head. I'm not writing notes for this episode, I'm just talking. It's something that a lot of people experience and that we don't talk about. So what does that mean for us as professionals who work with pregnant women and work with newborns? The first thing we need to do is really educate ourselves about it, understand that it's really common, and then really look at our policies. Like I was just talking about my deposit policy. I personally am going to be rethinking that.
What policies do we have in our businesses that are supportive of women of families who are going through pregnancy loss?
I don't have the right answer for that. You're going to have to figure that out for yourself and for your business. I think it's an important conversation to have. I'm having it with myself. Is holding that space and asking for that deposit, in the grand scheme of things, really that important? The people who make their appointments, if they can't or something comes up, or God forbid, they have a tragedy, I personally don't want to put people through the agony of having to call and tell people and rehash it over and over again. That's really hard. It's really hard.
The second thing I think that we all need to think about is when we are working with maternity clients in our studio or on location doing maternity poses, to make sure that we ourselves are educated on the science of preterm labor.
This is something I've never talked about before, but something that I personally practice in my business, just because I had preterm labor. I went into preterm labor at 22 weeks. I was carrying twins, and because of the preterm labor, my cervix started opening from the inside out. So at a normal exam, it wouldn't have been caught. Because I was a multiple pregnancy, high-risk pregnancy, they were doing extra safety measures and it was caught at 22 weeks. I was then put on bed rest and I was on bed rest for four months in the hospital because I was having cervical funneling. It's exactly the same thing that just happened to my client. Sadly, it wasn't caught in her case, and by the time they caught it, it was too late. As somebody who's experienced preterm labor, I always talk about it with my maternity clients when we are doing maternity posing.
I just actually taught a class on maternity posing for my certification program. I talked about this in the class too. Sometimes the way we need to pose people for maternity photos, even if it's just, push out your booty, you know, push out your belly arch, your back a little bit. Little things like that that we don't necessarily think about as non-pregnant people can cause contractions and can cause problems. If somebody is having preterm labor and they don't know about it, being in a position like that, holding a pose like that can make them feel uncomfortable and can bring on symptoms. I knew that because I experienced preterm labor in my own pregnancy. And so now when I'm working with a maternity client, I go through how to stand, poses all of that with them.
I always walk through the symptoms of preterm labor with my clients.
I say, listen, if anything we're doing today makes you feel lightheaded, makes you feel a little dizzy, makes you feel nauseous, makes you feel suddenly flushed, like you're having a hot flash makes you have a little bit of cramping. I just spell it all out. If you experience any of this from any of these poses, please let me know right away so we can stop.
A picture is not worth it.
I go through that with my clients and I just tell them, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nurse. But I experienced preterm labor in my own pregnancy. I went into labor for the first time at 22 weeks, and I didn't know what it felt like. Sometimes when you're a new mom, you've never been pregnant before, you can be having preterm labor symptoms and not even know what it feels like. This is what it feels like. These are things to look out for. If you start experiencing any of that here during your session today, any of these poses are making you feel this way, let me know and we are going to stop. I've had instances where we've had to stop a maternity session because of these very things. I had this one woman who kept getting really lightheaded to the point where she had to sit down, we thought she was gonna pass out. We stopped the session, she went to the doctor and ended up being in labor and having her baby the next day. So having these conversations with your clients, you guys is really, really important.
Educate yourself.
Do a quick Google search. Do a little research on signs of preterm labor. Avoid poses that could be problematic for pregnant women. With blood flow, little things like locking your knees when you're pregnant because you're nervous and you're getting your pictures taken can cause a lot of problems. We need to know about these things as professionals who work with pregnant women, even though we are not in the medical field.
If a conversation comes up in a session, be open to holding that space for your clients.
I can't tell you how many times over the course of my 25-year career, I have had women open up and share pregnancy loss, struggles with fertility, infant loss, these sad stories as we're doing their photos. I can't tell you how many times I have stopped taking pictures and just sat and listened and cried with my clients and heard their stories.
If you do this long enough, it's going to happen. It's going to come up. Being able to be comfortable to hold that space when somebody is sharing with you, that's part of what I do.
I say to my husband all the time, I am part-time photographer and part-time therapist.
Photographing somebody is entering into a vulnerable space with them.
Things will come up. People will share. When people share, listen. Don't try to make it better. Don't silver line it. Don't say, well at least you have this baby. Aren't you so lucky that this one worked out? Just be in the space. Listen and be open to the special part of our job that allows people to share.
As photographers, we are in some of the most vulnerable, personal moments that you can be in with a person. We're at their wedding or we are with their pregnancy, we're at their birth, we're in their hospital room with their baby, their newborn. These are really special times in people's lives. And I think reminding of ourselves of that every once in a while is important.
Lastly, take care of yourself.
This is something that I've been kind of reeling with for the last couple of days. My client's loss isn't my loss. I get that, but I'm also human. It's also triggering for me because of my own pregnancy loss, and my own bout with preterm labor, but also I'm a freaking human. And this is just really sad. And it's okay to be sad.
Allow yourself to have your very human feelings.
Take care of yourself. If you need to take a break for the day or a couple of days, practice self-care. When these things come up, it's hard and it's sad and it's okay for it to be hard and sad and to grieve with your client, to grieve for your client. I think all of that is appropriate.
Is it appropriate maybe to like, sit and sob through the whole thing? Probably not. Did I cry yesterday with my client when we were talking about it? I sure did. I think that's okay. So that's all I have to say. This was a hard episode to record. I hope it was helpful.
I think this is a conversation that we should have more in the industry because we work with pregnant women, we work with newborns. It's going to come up. It's more common than people talk about.
So let's start talking about it.
Let's start thinking of ways that we can support ourselves. We can support our clients, we can have policies in our business that put people first. The whole idea of people over profits - believe in that. Let's have these conversations. If you have thoughts, I would love to hear them. If you have something to share, or if you have questions, send me a DM on Instagram. I'm happy to have this conversation with you because I think it's important and I think as an industry it's something that we need to talk about more. So thank you for being with me today through this difficult conversation and bearing with me as I just shared all my thoughts. I wish you all the best this week. We'll be back next week with another episode.
