A baby bump is “in”, judging by the number of pregnant celebrities who are baring it all on the front covers of magazines.

Singer Jessica Simpson was the latest to join in the fun.

Others who have clutched their bumps on mag fronts include pop stars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford – to name a few.

And they seem to have inspired local women to do so too.

There are now photographers here who specialise in artistic maternity shoots, and they tell The New Paper on Sunday that the requests keep coming in on a daily basis.

Mr Jothy John, 44, of JJ Photography, who does newborn and maternity photography, says business has gone up.

On average, he gets five or six enquiries a day and out of that number, one or two would ask for maternity shoots.

And all of them ask to pose nude or semi-nude, he says.

The father of two reckons that he has seen a 20 per cent increase in the maternity-shoot bit of his business.

Roughly half his mummy clientele is local and half expatriate.

Similarly, photographer Hart Tan, 33, the founder of Tomato Photo, has seen a rise in requests for maternity shoots, so much so that he has to turn some down.

He says: “The request for maternity shoots is still high. We have to turn some of the requests down due to the high volume.”

Last year, he did about 30 maternity shoots a month, and now he does about 20 such shoots a month.

On average, he gets about 10 enquiries a day and out of that number, two to three are for maternity shoots.

Most of his mummy-to-be clients are foreigners, with local women making up only about 10 per cent of the numbers.

And 80 per cent of them opt for fully nude shots.

The shoots are usually done in the studio, he reveals.

Mrs Natasha Mak-Levrion, a Singaporean, is one of those who opted for a fully nude shoot. She has done it not once, but twice.