EVERYDAY LIFE: Childbirth

A new-born baby would be wash with warm water until the flow of blood in the umbilical cord had ceased and it could be cut with an obsidian knife. The placenta and the cord were placed reventially to one side. In the case of the working-classes they would not be dried and saved to be buried, one day, with their owner, as was the habit of some members of the nobility.

A woman giving birth abd being helped by Hathor and Taweret (Temple of Hathor, Dendera)

A typical birthing scene would have women reciting incantations to the Seven Hathors who presided over the birth, and who would predict the nature of the child´s death. A child born on the twenty-third of the month would be killed by a crocodile; on the fourth by fever; on the fifth by love. Lucky chldren were born on the ninth day of the second month of Akhet - they would die of old age. Even luckier were those born on the twenty-ninth day of the same month: they would die ´well-respected´.

Wall relief of the Seven Hathors (Temple of Dendera)

But if the baby were to live at all, and most didn´t survive infancy, it would need to be protected from want and disease; a protection which only material well-being, however modest, could supply. (Anton Gill, Ancient Egyptians, 2003)