Milk Bath Maternity Session | Cleveland Maternity Photographer

You want to know what can be incredibly intimidating for a photographer?  Taking maternity pictures of another FABULOUS photographer friend.  Oh, and add in the fact that we are going to hang out in the bathroom for our session and you’ve got a real recipe for awkward.  That’s what I thought at least.  It turns out, just the opposite was true.

When I first heard about milk baths, I had the same reaction as most of you- ‘Huh?  Milk WHAT?!’.  There was no part of milk-plus-bath that I was interested in.  After a little research, beyond looking purely gorgeous in images, milk has numerous benefits to the skin that pregnant mommies can really benefit from!  So… we went for it.

I filled a giant bath tub with hot water and started adding in powdered milk.  I needed about 2 gallons worth of powdered milk to get the water creamy.  Using my arm to gently stir it all in, we needed a bit more opacity to really get it right in camera.  Enter gallon of coffee creamer.  Yes, you heard that right.  If you’ve ever dreamed of swimming in coffee creamer- here’s your chance.  I poured the entire bottle right into the creamy milk mixture. After a few minutes of letting the bubbles settle, we were ready!

I added a few big blooms, helped mommy into the warm milky mixture, and boom- it was nothing short of magical.  A milk bath is different from a traditional maternity shoot because instead of perfecting poses, you are simply capturing a mommy relaxed & enjoying those last few days of this sweet little boy being in the womb.  And as you can see from the stunning images we produced… that, my friends, makes it all worth it.