At first glance, it seems like a beautiful photo celebrating pregnancy – but the meaning behind the image is even more powerful.
Last month, US blogger Chasity Boatman uploaded two photos (pictured below) on the Facebook page of her parenting blog, Every Child is a Blessing: My Journey from Pregnancy through Parenthood.
They were taken to honour rainbow babies – the children born after a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss.
She said in a post, "In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison."
The moving, colourful photos were taken by Natalia Karpovovy and Elena Gannenko. The first featured seven pregnant women who had previously lost a baby - followed by a second photo of them holding their new, much-loved babies after their birth.
The response has been overwhelming - the photos have been shared more than 120,000 times and hundreds of people have commented with stories of their own rainbow babies.
Boatman, of East Texas, told The Motherish that she posted the photo to encourage women to "support and heal one another".
“The goal of my blog, and this photo, is to help women support each other and heal. For women to know that they're not alone in their struggles," she said.
"People glamorise pregnancy and parenting. People don't often discuss things like miscarriages. So women who experience miscarriages feel isolated, and often find little to no support.
"That's why I'm so overwhelmingly happy at how well this photo has done in bringing women together. Beautiful, amazing things happen when women support one another and I think how well this blog post has done is a testament to that.”
We couldn't agree more.
Have you experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss?
