The birth in Egyptian Antiquity was surrounded by transcendence, as befits the importance of the moment, and several legends. Some practice without real basis but that became an extended habit was the hairstyle of the Egyptian parturients.
Women who gave birth in Egypt were in the habit of not knotting or picking up their hair in any way, as it was thought that these ties could make labor difficult.
Christian Jacq, in her book "The Egyptians" comments that the parturient must be naked with her hair down, because she must be free of any knot that complicates childbirth. In the ancient representations of births, it is seen at birth at the mother with loose hair.
This reminded me of my births: normally at home I wear my hair collected for comfort, but for births I wanted to wear my hair on the floor. Something unconscious inside of me wanted that freedom?
Returning to ancient Egypt, the hippo goddess Tauret or Tueris was the patron and protector of pregnant women, childbirth and birth, and its image was one of the most used amulets to have children as well as those representing the dwarf god Bes, the goddess Neith or Hathor.
In the sexual sphere of women there was a clear and decisive underworld of magic, in which they trusted to help them overcome the difficulties that nature gave birth. Along with this hairstyle, the use of amulets and different rituals was common and widespread.
There was a whole range of talismans, exorcisms, exvotes, prayers and gifts to the temples, which are part of the relationships between magic and medicine, between science and superstition. We already saw an example of this in the first surgical instrument, which was precisely used in the ancient Egyptian civilization to cut the umbilical cord, and which was not exempt from a magical ritual use.
A very used amulet was that of the mother and the newborn sleeping in the same bed, which would favor that mother and son could sleep together.
Anyway, despite these entrustments to the "beyond", the problems at the time of giving birth and the mortality in childbirth were quite high, and only occasionally the beneficial actions of goddesses related to fertility (Hathor, the goddess Neith or the frog goddess Heket) protected women who, from the moment of pregnancy, were already, in many cases, doomed to die in childbirth.
In any case, it is curious this custom of ancient egyptians not to pick their hair during childbirth To avoid complications. Surely some unfounded popular practices of this type are still maintained in some parts of the world ... and not always so far away.
