For all of us, our primary Cesarean occurred during our first full-term or late pre-term pregnancy.

Of the initial 28 participants in the collection, the type of Cesareans they had can be categorized as follows:

Primary Cesarean

14: non-emergent, 8: emergent, 5: planned, 1: pre-term emergent

Repeat Cesarean

2: non-emergent, 2: emergent, 11: planned
8 of the women photographed have had more than 1 Cesarean for a total of 15 Cesareans between them.

Many participants spoke about the stress and emotional toll an unexpected Cesarean (whether emergent or not) had on them when it became a part of their birth story.

It was important that a range of time postpartum was represented, to show the way that scars can change overtime.

Range of time postpartum

Next steps

One aspect of this collection that needs tending to is the diversity of skin tones that are represented. Overwhelmingly, I replicated the search engines, in that the majority of the participants have white to pinkish skin.

Black women have the highest rate of Cesarean sections, followed by Asian/Pacific Islanders and Hispanic women. There should be easily accessible images of what they can expect scars to look like on their bodies, and how their scars might heal.

Furthermore, their stories and narratives are missing from this collection as well.

As we consider hosting another photoshoot, we will have to pivot how we promote this opportunity so that more people can see themselves reflected in this collection.