Growing Family takes baby's First Foto: largest U.S. in-hospital newborn portrait company offers more than just pictures.

No one with even the slightest familiarity with the photo industry needs to be told that parents--especially new parents--are major photography consumers. Newborn portraiture taken in hospitals is a guaranteed hit, and Growing Family Inc., St. Louis, Mo. (www.growingfamily.com), has built a long and very successful

The company, by far the largest in-hospital portrait business in the United States, and growing strong in Canada, has been specializing in newborn portraits since Ray Harmon founded it in 1947. Harmon is still very involved in the business today, serving as chairman of the board.

A variety of services for new parents

Throughout the years, Growing Family has itself grown to offer additional services.

"We have a few different product lines. With First Foto, we provide many hospitals with in-hospital photo equipment and, often, in-hospital photographers to take the baby's first photo," says Beth Rogers, vice president of Marketing. "We also offer, free to new parents, the Growing Family WebNursery, which provides baby's first Web page.

"The third product line is the Growing Family Network. We partner with a number of other companies, such as Birthday Express, Scholastic Books and Sears Portrait Studios to offer coupons, savings and samples for new parents. There is one envelope of offers provided in the hospital, and then mailings are sent to the home when the baby reaches three, six, nine, 12, and 24 months."

The WebNursery allows families and friends around the world to see pictures of the new baby, and often of mom, dad and siblings as well. They can also leave a welcome message for the little one.

Offered through the hospital's website, WebNursery allows users to search for the newborn by family, by hospital or by ZIP Code. To protect privacy, only the baby's first name and last initial are used. For added security, baby's picture isn't posted until after he or she leaves the hospital.

First Fotos taken in more than 2,500 hospitals

Although the other services are important and valuable to new parents, Growing Family is known best for providing First Fotos. It serves 2,308 hospitals in the United States (or 70 percent of the market) and 204 in Canada, and employs about 1,500 part-time photographers.