When to Contact Us

Please call between the hours of 7:00 am and 10:00 pm. If there is a Local Area Dispatch Line or Area Coordinator, please only call those numbers first. If you have not heard back within two (2) hours (within our operating hours), please call the nearest listed photographers.

Gestational Guideline

Our guideline for dispatching a volunteer photographer for a Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep session is that the baby be at least 22 weeks gestation. This is a baseline from which medical professionals may deviate based on their experience. It is possible that babies younger or older than 22 weeks would be either advisable or inadvisable.

For additional information, please view our Medical FAQs.

Life Support

If a baby is on life support, a NILMDTS photographer might be available to capture photographs before the baby is removed from life support or after. Please ask the family to do what they are most comfortable with. However, we encourage the family to wait until life support is removed. This way, we can capture photographs of the baby without the tubes and wires.

Making the Call

If you need to request our services for a family, go to Find a Photographer. The more notice we have about a family’s possible need, the greater the chance a NILMDTS Affiliated Photographer will be available to provide services.

Please see if a photographer is available BEFORE you offer the services to the family. We often receive calls directly from families. However, they are enduring the worst moment of their life, and it is often best if a hospital employee facilitates the call on behalf of the family.

As this is a volunteer service, we can never guarantee the availability of a photographer. You can find out more on What to Expect.

Please remember all of our photographers are volunteers. In some communities, we may not have enough photographers to meet the need. We do our best to accommodate all requests, but there may be times when our photographers are unavailable. When a volunteer is unavailable, please offer image Retouching Services.