A photograph of a baby reaching out of her mother's womb as she was being delivered by Caesarean section has gone viral.
Baby Nevaeh Atkins was snapped grabbing hold of the doctor's finger during her birth, in a touching moment captured by father Randy Atkins.
Mother Alicia posted the image on Facebook 10 weeks after the October delivery in a Phoenix-area hospital.
Hello world! Baby Nevaeh Atkins reaches out for a helping hand
"Dr Sawyer broke my water and my daughter reached up out of my stomach and grabbed the Dr's finger and my hubby caught this special moment," she wrote.
The picture was kept under wraps as the new parents prepared to have it mounted and enlarged as a gift for Dr Allan Sawyer, whose finger Nevaeh is grasping.
"I just thought right away that it was a beautiful, amazing photo that I had never seen before," Alicia told ABCNews.com. "I knew it was special right away.
"When my doctor broke my water, the doctor told my husband, 'Hey, she's holding my finger,'" she added. "He had my camera, and so they were able to capture the moment of her holding his hand."
In addition to the thousands of "likes" the image has collected on Facebook, she said the family has received offers to purchase the photo.
Alicia told WTVR: “A couple of them have said they would love to have the photo for their organisation where they’re against abortion."
In 2003, a somewhat similar photo surfaced. The image showed an unborn 21-week-old baby with spina bifida appearing to grab the hand of a surgeon during a 1999 procedure.
But as Snopes.com clarified, a physician later confirmed that the baby did not reach out and was in fact fully anesthetised; the hand merely "flopped out" as the surgeon closed an incision.