Giving birth can be a very scary thing for a newly pregnant, first time mom. Having a baby can be painful, stressful, physically and mentally exhausting. But once it’s over, happiness is the only feeling left.
Thaise De Mari gave birth to a baby girl she named Carmel. She took a selfie with her newborn baby and partner while still laying on the operating table after her c-section and posted it to Instagram. The photo is social media gold. The family is full of smiles and it’s totally adorable.
The new mom looked at her seconds-old baby girl and saw what appeared to be a smile on the newborn’s face. In that moment, De Mari mimicked the expression of her daughter, and that is when the picture was taken. It was a priceless moment captured forever.
Writing on Instagram in Portuguese, De Mari recalled, “And suddenly the picture of my life is without production, without resolution, without worry about hair, makeup or angle! My face is swollen and crying, dad with a face of baboon and Carmel already showing in the first seconds why she’s here… to make a family happy!”
De Mari told Brazilian television network Globo in March 2017, “My husband was registering the moment with the cell phone, they put her next to me, and he approached us to do a selfie. He said it looked like she was smiling! I looked at her and also saw the same thing. We looked at the phone and smile, ‘imitating’ her face.”
To some, it looks more like the baby is crying in the picture. But De Mari told Globo, “Contrary to what a lot of people are talking about, she was not screaming!” The mom does believe, however, that there was probably another force at play.
Studies suggest that babies don’t start smiling as a result of stimulus until they are at least a month-and-a-half old. Given that De Mari’s baby was new into this world, the expression on her face was more likely a “reflex smile,” an instinct the same as sucking or rooting. It’s a theory the new mom agrees with.
Curiously, it was only when the C-section was some three months past that it suddenly went viral. But the joyful nature of the picture has struck a cord with many, with De Mari telling Brazilian news outlet ZH in March 2017, “It’s good to get so much affection from people we do not know.” Not all attention, however, has been positive.
“Unfortunately people have preconceptions every time,” De Mari told Brazilian news outlet ZH. “We get comments about the C-section, about the selfie, saying it’s a fake photograph.” She added, “People even mock my daughter’s name. I was annoyed, so I stopped reading.” Instead, De Mari encourages well-wishers to visit her on social media.
De Mari has already returned to work. And although being a parent is a tough role and incredibly stressful at times, it doesn’t take much for the new mom to remember the job’s biggest reward: her daughter’s smile. She told Globo, “It’s a new life. It’s tiring but very pleasurable. Even at dawn when we’re exhausted, it opens up a smile that makes up for anything.”
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