List of Roman Birth and Childhood Deities - Birthing

Birthing

The primary deity presiding over the delivery was Juno Lucina, who may in fact be a form of Diana. Those invoking her aid let their hair down and loosened their clothing as a form of reverse binding ritual intended to facilitate labor. Soranus advised women about to give birth to unbind their hair and loosen clothing to promote relaxation, not for any magical effect.

• Egeria, the nymph, received sacrifices from pregnant women in order to bring out (egerere) the baby.
• Postverta and Prosa avert breech birth.
• Diespiter (Jupiter) brings the baby toward the daylight.
• Lucina introduces the baby to the light (lux, lucis).
• Vagitanus or Vaticanus opens the newborn's mouth for its first cry.
• Levana lifts the baby, who was ceremonially placed on the ground after birth in symbolic contact with Mother Earth. (In antiquity, kneeling or squatting was a more common birthing position than it is in modern times; see di nixi.) The midwife then cut the umbilical cord and presented the newborn to the mother, a scene sometimes depicted on sarcophagi. A grandmother or maternal aunt next cradled the infant in her arms; with a finger covered in lustral saliva, she massaged the baby's forehead and lips, a gesture meant to ward off the evil eye.
• Statina (also Statilina, Statinus or Statilinus) gives the baby fitness or "straightness," and the father held it up to acknowledge his responsibility to raise it. Unwanted children might be abandoned at the Temple of Pietas or the Columna Lactaria. Newborns with serious birth defects might be drowned or smothered.