Touching photos capture mothers cradling their newborn babies just 24 hours after giving birth

It's one of the most precious moments you will ever share with your child - their first 24 hours on this earth. 

And one photographer has spent her last year five years capturing the special time, snapping new mothers in that first flush of happiness. 

Jenny Lewis, who has been taking portraits for over 15 years, captured new mothers and their newborn children in the London borough of Hackney.

Her aim was to show that childbirth is a beautiful and positive experience and nothing to be feared.

Now 40 photographs have been selected for Jenny's book from more than 150 images.

She said: My aim was to capture the extraordinary bonding, warmth and strength between mother and infant. In fact the whole range of amazing emotions felt at that time, as the mothering instinct kicks in.

'I find the collection of images defiant and beautiful, challenging the expected vision of those first 24 hours, a pure celebration of what it means to be a mother.'

On her website she further explains: 'I wanted to tell a story about the strength and resilience of women post-childbirth that I feel goes largely unacknowledged in today’s world. 

'To reassure women that childbirth is okay; yes it’s painful but it is a positive pain, one that has purpose and is just part of the journey, a rite of passage into motherhood.'

She added: 'Very early on in the project I knew I wanted to concentrate on the first 24 hours, when a woman’s body is engulfed by hormones, to capture the unrelenting physicality of the moment, straight from the battlefield. 

'Sweat still glistening on the mothers’ skin, the translucent umbilical cord, freshly severed, and wide-eyed wonder as the women come to terms with the magnitude of what they have achieved and survived.'

Jenny found the subjects of her portraits by handing out leaflets in her own borough. She was keen to seek out women who wanted to take part, rather than choosing anyone for their looks, age, race or class, and she photographed them over a period of five years.

The mothers are all photographed in their own environments at home providing a fascinating and intimate backdrop to each portrait.

Interspersed between the images are quotes and insights, expressed by the women featured, about becoming a mother. 

Some of the women are smiling in the pictures while others look wistfully at their new child. The newborns range in size, expression and are either crying with gusto or lying fast asleep in their mums' arms.

Jenny says that it was her goal to capture, 'the joy, the overwhelming love and the triumphant victory every new mother feels. In my mind this is the supportive message we should be passing on to future generations rather than paralysing them with fear.'

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