Photographer Snaps Babies As They Are Inside the Womb

Photographer Marry Fermont captures babies as they were in their mother's womb.

A Netherlands-based photographer has developed a following for capturing babies in their most primal state -- in the same position as they spent the past nine months nestled inside their mother’s womb.

Marry Fermont was photographing her first birth, in 2011, when she watched as the midwife positioned the newborn baby for its parents to see their child as it was in the womb, curled up and folded over to fit inside the small nook.

Fermont, 35, says she thought the photo did such a good job of satisfying the hard-to-imagine image of how a living, breathing, multiple-pound human could have fit inside its mother that she now does it at all of the births she photographs, if the baby’s health allows.

“Nothing [is] more special if you ask me,” Fermont, the owner of Fermont Fotografie, told ABC News by email. "You get a lot of oooh’s and aaah’s once it’s shown to them. They love to see how their baby actually fit.”

Fermont, herself a new mother, says mothers often request that their partners hold the newborn in the womb position for the photo.

“It makes it just a little more special if the dad does it,” Fermont wrote. "It has been in the mum’s belly for so long and after nine months his child fits exactly in his hand like it was in the belly.”

When Fermont gave birth to her daughter, Liv, in July she had another photographer, Lobke Koppens, take photos of Liv in the same womb pose that Fermont has made famous.

“Now that I am a mother myself, it made me realize even more how important photos are,” Fermont wrote. "Not only to remember one of the most special moments in your life, but also to process the birth and everything that happened.”