Digitally created image shared as picture of a foetus’s footprints on the mother’s belly - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 8, 2022
A photo is being shared on social media claiming it as a beautiful picture showing a foetus’s footprints on the mother’s belly. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo showing a foetus footprints on the mother’s belly.
Fact: The photo shared in the post is most likely digitally created artwork. Several media agencies including the ‘AP News’ confirmed it as a manipulated image. While it is possible to see the bulge of a foetus’s limbs during pregnancy, doctors confirm that the details of a foot would not be visible because it would be inside the uterine wall. Lev Dolgachov, an Estonia-based photographer, created a similar artwork of a pregnant belly with a baby footprint in 2017. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, we found that the photo was circulating on the internet at least since 2004. ‘Snopes’ published a fact-check article mentioning it as false news in 2004 and later updated the article citing a clarification from a doctor in 2018. Jennifer Gunter, a California-based doctor, through a tweet, confirmed that the photo was a digitally created image. Jennifer Gunter said, “That seems to be photoshopped because otherwise this lady is term, breech with a ruptured uterus”.
And those toes are hella weird so it’s a bad photoshop likely from some trash forced birth site
Not only ‘Snopes’, but several news websites including the ‘AP News’ website published articles clarifying it as a manipulated image created digitally using photoshop software. They can be seen here and here. Dr Laura Riley, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Weill Cornell Medicine, spoke to the ‘AP News’ regarding this photo and said, “That is fake. If you saw that much definition of the foot, then the uterus would have ruptured. Baby is floating inside of the uterus until delivery and the uterine wall is thick“. While it is possible to see the bulge of a foetus’s limbs during pregnancy, doctors confirm that the details of a foot would not be visible because it would be inside the uterine wall. The complete details of foetal development during pregnancy can be seen here.
On searching for further sources, a similar digitally created photo of a pregnant belly with a visible baby footprint was found in an article published on the ‘Dreamstime’ website in 2017. Lev Dolgachov, an Estonia-based photographer has created this digital artwork and published it on several image-sharing platforms. Lev Dolachov published this image with a description, “pregnancy, love, people and expectation concept – close up of pregnant woman belly with baby footprint over green natural background”. The original image on which these footprints were digitally added can be seen here. Though we could not find out the details of the creator of the image shared in the post, from all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the image shared in the post is most likely a digitally created image, not a real photo.
To sum it up, a digitally created image is shared as a picture of a foetus’s footprints visible on the mother’s belly.