The honest answer is: it genuinely goes both ways. In one community poll of moms who skipped professional maternity photos, more than half said they had no regrets at all, while roughly a third said they were glad they'd had photos done (Hellobee) — there's no universal experience here, and anyone telling you there's only one right answer is oversimplifying something real people feel differently about. This question tends to come up in two very different situations: someone currently pregnant, weighing whether to book a session at all, and someone who's already had the baby and is starting to wonder, a little belatedly, whether they should have. Both are covered below, along with actual quotes from both sides of the regret question, why regret shows up more often in hindsight than people expect, and a genuinely low-effort way to hedge your bets either way.
Key takeaways
- Opinions are genuinely split — a real community poll found most moms who skipped maternity photos don't regret it, while a meaningful minority do
- Regret tends to show up later than expected — several moms who skipped it for body-image reasons said the regret only set in once they looked back
- Maternity photos aren't "necessary" in any objective sense — this is a personal preference decision, not an obligation
- If you're on the fence, there's a low-barrier way to hedge: an AI-generated portrait from a casual photo you already have, without booking anything or committing to a full session
What moms who regret skipping it actually say
These are real comments, not composites. From a Hellobee community discussion on this exact question:
"I regret not having them! I hated the way I looked but looking back I don't really have any nice pics of me pregnant."
"I regret not having them done. I have only 3 pictures of me pregnant."
Notice the pattern in both: the regret wasn't about the pregnancy or the decision at the time — it was about looking back later and realizing there simply isn't much visual record of that specific chapter. Neither comment describes wishing they'd had a fancier session; both describe wishing they had more, or any, documentation at all.
And here's what moms who don't regret it say
From the same discussion, the other side of the split:
"I didn't do maternity photos and I don't regret it. I took weekly bump photos so those are fun to look back on."
"I didn't get them and don't regret it! I wouldn't have known what to do with lots of pics of pregnant me."
"I made a conscious decision NOT to get them done because I didn't enjoy pregnancy, didn't look or feel good and didn't feel compelled to have reminders of it."
These aren't people who simply forgot or ran out of time — several describe an active, considered choice, often because casual documentation (weekly phone photos) already felt like enough, or because a difficult pregnancy made "reminders of it" the last thing they wanted.
Why regret shows up more in hindsight than in the moment
There's a well-documented psychological pattern that helps explain why the "regret" side of this split tends to surface later rather than at the time: people generally regret their actions more in the short term, but regret their inactions — the things they didn't do — more in the long term (Gilovich & Medvec; replicated in more recent work via Collabra: Psychology). An action you took has a concrete outcome you can process and move past; something you didn't do stays open-ended, and your imagination is free to fill in how it might have turned out. That matches what shows up in the quotes above almost exactly — the regret isn't "I wish I hadn't skipped it because it would have been bad," it's the quieter, more persistent "I wonder what I'd have if I'd just done it."
This doesn't mean everyone will eventually regret skipping maternity photos — plenty clearly don't, years later, per the same poll. It just explains why the regret that does show up tends to arrive well after the decision, which is worth knowing if you're currently trying to guess how you'll feel about this in five years.
A pattern worth noticing in those quotes
Look closely at the real comments above and a more useful pattern emerges than a generic "you might regret it" warning. The people who ended up regretting skipping maternity photos tended to describe the decision as something that happened to them — self-consciousness in the moment that they didn't actively choose so much as give in to, followed later by realizing there wasn't much of a record left over. The people who don't regret it tended to describe an active, considered decision: a difficult pregnancy they didn't want reminders of, a preference for casual documentation they already had, or simply knowing themselves well enough to know they wouldn't display or revisit posed portraits anyway.
That distinction — passive avoidance versus active choice — seems to matter more than whether someone technically "had" maternity photos or not. If your current hesitation feels more like the first pattern (avoiding it because the idea makes you uncomfortable, without having really decided you don't want the outcome), that's worth noticing, since it's closer to the pattern that shows up in the regret quotes. If it feels like the second (you've thought about it and genuinely don't want this), that's a different, more settled place to be.
The middle ground between "full session" and "nothing at all"
Part of what makes this decision feel higher-stakes than it needs to be is treating it as binary: either book an expensive professional session, or end up with zero documentation of your pregnancy. Several of the "no regrets" comments above point to a middle option that gets skipped over in that framing — casual, low-effort documentation that isn't a formal photoshoot at all. Weekly bump selfies on a phone, a handful of photos a partner happened to take, or a single deliberate photo taken on a good day all count as "having something," and several people specifically cited exactly this kind of casual record as the reason they don't regret skipping the professional version. If the all-or-nothing framing is what's making this decision feel stressful, it's worth remembering that the actual choice isn't between a full session and nothing — there's a wide middle ground that a lot of people land on without ever thinking of it as a compromise.
So are maternity photos actually necessary?
No — and that's worth saying plainly. Nothing bad happens if you skip them, no milestone goes undocumented in any way that matters to your child, and plenty of parents look back with zero regrets. "Necessary" isn't really the right frame for a decision this personal. A more useful set of questions: Do you generally enjoy having photos of yourself, or do you tend to avoid cameras in daily life too? Have you regretted skipping documentation of other meaningful moments in the past? Is the actual obstacle cost and scheduling, or is it that you genuinely don't want photos of yourself right now regardless of price? Your honest answers to those three questions predict how you'll likely feel about this decision later better than any general rule could.
A simple framework if you're still deciding
If the questions above didn't fully settle it, try this more concrete version: picture yourself one year from now, scrolling through your phone looking for a photo from this pregnancy. If that search comes up empty except for a few random, unflattering candids, how do you think you'd feel? Genuinely indifferent, or a little wistful? There's no wrong answer, but people are often more honest with themselves imagining a specific future moment than answering an abstract "should I" question in the present. If picturing that empty search feels uncomfortable, that's useful information pointing toward doing something, even something small. If it genuinely doesn't bother you to imagine, that's just as useful information pointing the other way.
It's also worth separating your own feelings from anyone else's expectations here. A partner, parent, or friend excited about the pregnancy might want photos more than you do, and that's a completely normal mismatch — but it's your regret or lack of it at stake, not theirs. If you're leaning toward skipping it and the only real pressure is external, that's worth naming clearly for yourself before you decide either way.
A low-barrier way to hedge, either direction
If you're genuinely torn, or you've already had the baby and are starting to feel the quieter version of regret described above, there's a middle path that doesn't require committing to a full session or accepting that the window has closed. An AI maternity photo generator like AI Maternity Photoshoot Lab works from a photo you already have — even a casual one, taken without any intention of it being "the" maternity photo — and restyles it into a polished, maternity-style portrait. There's no scheduling, no cost commitment beyond a free tier, and no pressure to have already decided how you feel about being photographed while pregnant.
New accounts get 30 complimentary credits, and photos that don't meet the basic requirements are auto-blocked before any credits are used, so there's genuinely no downside to just seeing what a result looks like. To be upfront about the limits: it works from a single portrait of one person, so it can't merge a separate photo of a partner into the same image; results depend on your source photo's lighting and clarity; and it doesn't recreate the actual experience of a live photoshoot — only the resulting image. For someone weighing "maybe I'll regret this" against "I don't want a whole production," it's a genuinely low-stakes way to end up with something rather than nothing, without fully committing either direction.
This matters specifically because of the pattern described above: regret over inaction tends to grow precisely because there's no fixed outcome to look back on and process — just an open-ended "what if." Generating even one portrait from a photo you already have closes that loop. It gives you something concrete rather than a hypothetical, which is exactly the kind of resolution that the research on inaction regret suggests tends to prevent it from lingering. Whether you end up loving the result or shrugging at it, you'll have actually answered the question instead of carrying it forward unresolved.
No clock is actively counting down on this
One thing worth removing from the equation entirely: the sense that this has to be decided by a hard deadline or not at all. If you're currently pregnant, you have your entire pregnancy to change your mind in either direction, and a mini session or a quick AI-generated portrait can both happen with very little notice if you decide late. If you've already given birth and are only now sitting with a bit of regret, that feeling doesn't have to be permanent or acted on immediately — the option to generate something from an old photo works exactly the same whether you use it this week or next year. Treating this as an urgent, one-time decision adds pressure that doesn't actually match how flexible the real options are.
Frequently asked questions
Q. Do people regret not doing maternity photos? A. Some do, some don't — real community discussions on this show a real split, with a majority reporting no regrets and a meaningful minority wishing they'd had photos taken. There's no single typical outcome.
Q. Should I do maternity photos if I'm not sure? A. There's no universally correct answer, but it's worth asking whether your hesitation is about cost and logistics (in which case a lower-cost option might resolve it) or about genuinely not wanting photos of yourself right now (in which case skipping is a completely valid choice too).
Q. Are maternity photos necessary? A. No. They're a personal choice, not an obligation, and plenty of parents skip them entirely with no regrets. The decision comes down to personal preference, not necessity.
Q. What if I already skipped my maternity photos and now regret it? A. If you have any photo from while you were pregnant — even a casual one — you can still generate a maternity-style portrait from it after the fact. It won't recreate the live experience of a photoshoot, but it does give you a real image to have, whenever you're ready for it.
Q. What kind of person is most likely to regret skipping maternity photos later? A. Based on real accounts, regret tends to show up more for people who avoided photos in the moment due to self-consciousness rather than people who made an active, considered decision not to have them. If your hesitation feels more like avoidance than a settled preference, that's worth noticing.
Q. Is it too late to do something if I've already given birth? A. No. If you have even one photo from during your pregnancy, a maternity-style portrait can still be generated from it at any point afterward — there's no expiration on this option.
