In 2011, photographer Leilani Rogers captured the birth of her niece and since then she's been hooked.

The American from Austin, Texas, has documented 50 mothers going through labour and captured the kind of poignant and powerful images few of us have seen before - unless we've experienced it ourselves.

Rogers, who is also the founder of the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project says that, "Shortly after I felt strongly that I should specialize in just birth photography, and am currently one of very few photographers who do.

"I have photographed every type of birth – homebirth, water birth, hospital birth, hospital transfers, birth center births, cesarean birth, multiples, even a baby born in the caul."

Her work receives hundreds of comments and likes from mothers on social media.

We take a look at some of her most moving pictures and the stories behind them, below:

The joy, the relief, and the exhaustion: photographer captures moments of raw elation after childbirth