Japanese women celebrate pregnancy with maternity nudes
"The special feeling of waiting for motherhood helps alleviate the fear of nudity. And with more women becoming pregnant at a late age, for them this is an experience that will never happen again," said Yuko Ishizaki, an assistant professor at Japan Women's University.
Mums-to-be pay around 35,000 yen ($368.2) for a studio photo shoot, which takes less than two hours in "Ixchel."
"Before this boom, women didn't know where to go to take these kinds of pictures even though they wanted to. Because of media attention, they easily found our studio," said Natsuko Takada, the owner of photo studio "Ixchel."
"When I opened my studio for maternity photos last year we had less than 10 customers a month but last month we had more than 70 customers," said Takada.
($1 = 95.04 Yen)
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