Simantonnayana: The One Rite That Is About the Mother

This is the samskara that actually survived, and it survived by turning into a party.

North India: godh bharai

Godh is the lap, bharai the filling. The filling of the lap.

• Usually the seventh month
• The women of the family and the neighbourhood gather
• The mother to be is seated, dressed in new clothes, often red, yellow or green
• Her lap is filled: rice, coconut, fruit, sweets, dry fruit, and gifts for the baby
• Bangles, mehndi, sindoor, and the older women bless her
• Songs, and specifically the older folk songs of pregnancy, which vary by region and which are being lost
• A meal, and she eats first

Tamil Nadu: valaikappu and seemantham

Valaikappu is the bangle ceremony, and it is the living form.

• Glass bangles in large numbers are put on her arms, often twenty one or more on each
• The sound is the point. The belief is that the child hears them, and that the constant soft noise is protective and reassuring
• Held usually in the seventh or ninth month
• Seemantham is the more formal ritual version, with the priest, the mantras and the classical elements

Andhra and Telangana: seemantham

The formal rite, held with the family priest, and it retains more of the classical material than most regional forms.

Karnataka: seemantha or srimantha

Similar, with the bangles, the lap filling and the blessing.

Maharashtra: dohale jevan

The best named of all of them.

Dohada is the classical Sanskrit term for the cravings of pregnancy, and it is a lovely word: it comes from dvi hridaya, two hearts, because the pregnant woman is understood in the Ayurvedic literature to have two.

Dohale jevan is the meal at which her cravings are honoured. She is asked what she wants, and it is made, and she is decorated and seated and fed.

And the classical position on cravings is that they should be satisfied, because the desire is understood to be coming from the child as much as from her, and to deny it is held to harm both. Which is a piece of traditional reasoning that arrives at exactly the right practical answer.

Bengal and Assam: shaad, sadh, or sadhbhakshan

• Usually the seventh or ninth month
• She is fed, and specifically fed her favourite things, by the women of the family
• Payesh, the rice pudding, is essential
• New clothes, usually a red bordered sari

Gujarat: kholo bharvo, Rajasthan, Punjab, Odisha and every other region have their form, and the shape is the same everywhere: the women gather, she is dressed, she is fed, her lap is filled, and she is told she is being looked after.

What has been added, and what to think of it

The modern baby shower has merged with all of these in urban India, and there are now cakes, balloons, photo backdrops, gender reveal props and event planners.

The cake is harmless.

The gender reveal is not. It requires knowing the sex of the child, which in India means somebody committed an offence under the PCPNDT Act to find out. This is not a grey area. A gender reveal at an Indian baby shower is evidence of a crime, and this app is not going to be polite about it.

Four things about this ceremony that are worth saying plainly.

One. Widows and childless women are often excluded, and it is cruel.

In many communities, women who are widowed, or who have not had children, or who have lost a pregnancy or a child, are kept away from godh bharai and valaikappu, on the grounds that their presence is inauspicious.

This is done to them at exactly the point when it hurts most, in front of everybody, by their own families, and it is presented as religion.

It is not religion. There is no textual basis for it in the samskara literature, which says nothing of the kind, and it is a social custom of the same family as the treatment of widows generally, which this app has addressed elsewhere and which the reform traditions attacked directly.

If you are hosting one of these, invite them. If somebody objects, that is a conversation worth having, and you will find that most of the objection dissolves when somebody senior simply declines to enforce it.

Two. The eighth month superstition is false and it is dangerous.

There is a widespread folk belief that a child born in the eighth month will not survive, or is inauspicious, and it appears in some classical medical literature as well.

It is not true. A baby born at eight months is preterm, needs neonatal care, and with that care does well. The belief predates any capacity to provide that care and has no reason to survive it.

The harm it does now: families delay seeking care for an eighth month labour, treat the birth as shameful, and in some cases the child receives less attention than a term child would. Preterm babies need more care, not less.

If labour starts early, go to hospital immediately. That is the whole answer.

Three. Going to the natal home.

In most Indian communities the woman goes to her parents' home for the later months and the delivery, often after the godh bharai, which functions as the send off.

The good part: she is looked after by people who are on her side without qualification, she is not doing household work for in laws, and she gets rest.

The part that needs watching: it can also mean she is far from the hospital where her antenatal care has been happening, that her records are split, and that decisions in labour are made by people who have not been at the appointments.

Practical answer: carry the Mother and Child Protection Card, the full antenatal record, and register at the facility near wherever she will actually deliver, in advance.

Four. The thing this ceremony is genuinely for.

A seventh month pregnancy is uncomfortable, frightening and lonely, and Indian women in particular often carry it while continuing to run a household and while being told very little about what is happening to their bodies.

This ceremony puts her in the middle of a room full of women who have all done it, feeds her what she asks for, gives her things, and says out loud that she is now to be looked after.

That is not a small function and it is the reason this is the one prenatal samskara that never had to be revived, because it never stopped.

The medical part, and this is the important section

Danger signs in pregnancy. Go to a hospital immediately if any of these occur:

• Bleeding of any amount
• Severe headache, blurred vision, or seeing spots, which can indicate preeclampsia
• Swelling of the face and hands, particularly sudden
• Severe abdominal pain
• Reduced or absent fetal movement, once movements have been established
• Fever
• Fluid leaking
• Persistent vomiting or inability to keep fluids down
• Difficulty breathing
• Fits or convulsions, which are an emergency

Free and available:

• Antenatal care at any government facility
• Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan, free checkups on the ninth of every month
• Janani Suraksha Yojana and Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram, which cover institutional delivery, transport and medicines
• ASHA workers in every village
• Ambulance 108, health helpline 104, emergency 112

Deliver in a facility. India's maternal mortality has fallen substantially and institutional delivery is the single largest reason.

A practical guide, whichever regional form your family uses.

When: seventh month is the most common, and any time between the fifth and the ninth is fine. Ask her, and pick a day when she has energy.

Where: at home, at her parents' home, wherever she is comfortable. The classical rite is a household rite and does not require a temple.

Who: the women of both families and the neighbourhood, and in most modern versions men as well, which is a change and a good one.

And invite the widows and the women who have not had children. Say plainly, if you have to, that you are not running that rule.

What to do

One. Seat her comfortably. Cushions, back support, somewhere she can get up from easily and get to a bathroom quickly. This is the single most neglected part of Indian ceremonies involving pregnant women, who are routinely seated on the floor for three hours.

Two. Dress her, if she wants. New clothes, bangles, mehndi, flowers, whatever the family form is. If she does not want to, do not make her.

Three. Fill the lap. Rice, coconut, fruit, sweets, dry fruit, and whatever your family puts in.

Four. The hair. If you are keeping the classical element, the parting is drawn upward three times. A comb is fine; you do not need a porcupine quill, though if you can find one, the texts will approve.

Five. Feed her what she asked for. The dohale jevan principle, and it is the best thing in the whole ceremony. Ask her in advance, make the things, and let her eat first.

Six. The songs. The regional pregnancy songs are genuinely disappearing, and if there is an older woman in the family who knows them, this is the occasion to ask her to sing and to record it.

Seven. The blessing. Whatever your family says. The classical mantras invoke Raka and ask for the welfare of mother and child, and any priest will give you the text if you want it.

Eight. Something useful. Alongside the ceremonial gifts, the things she will actually need: a bag packed for the hospital, help arranged for after the birth, somebody committed to cooking for the first fortnight.

What not to do

• No gender reveal. It is a crime to have found out
• Do not exclude widowed or childless women
• Do not seat her on the floor for hours
• Do not let it run long. Two hours is plenty
• Do not let anybody feed her anything medicinal, herbal or otherwise, that a doctor has not approved
• Do not schedule it instead of the antenatal appointment. Schedule it around the appointment

A prayer, if you want one

Whichever deity is yours. Parvati, Lakshmi, the family devi, Santoshi Ma, Ganesha for the beginning, Hanuman for protection.

And the honest content of the prayer is the same in every language: let her come through this safely, let the child be well, and let this household be worth the trouble she is taking.

What it is: simantonnayana, from simanta the parting of the hair and unnayana the drawing upward. The third of the sixteen samskaras, performed between the fourth and eighth month of pregnancy, most commonly the seventh or eighth, and in most authorities at the first pregnancy only.

What is done: the husband parts his wife's hair upward from the forehead three times, with a porcupine quill bearing three white spots, a bunch of udumbara twigs with unripe fruit, a darbha bundle, or a full spindle. Mantras are recited invoking Raka, the goddess of the full moon. Vina players are prescribed in several texts, which makes this one of the very few samskaras with music written in. She is given what she wants to eat, fruit is placed in her lap, and the older women bless her.

Why it is different: every other rite in the sequence is about the child. This one is about the woman. The stated purposes are her protection, her peace of mind, which several authorities name directly, the safety of the pregnancy through her wellbeing, and the formal turning of the household's attention toward her. Its practical function is to make it socially unmistakable that she is now to be cared for and not worked.

Its living forms: godh bharai in north India, valaikappu and seemantham in Tamil Nadu, seemantham in Andhra and Telangana, seemantha in Karnataka, dohale jevan in Maharashtra, shaad in Bengal and Assam, kholo bharvo in Gujarat. Dohada, the classical word for pregnancy cravings, comes from dvi hridaya, two hearts, and the classical position is that cravings should be satisfied because the desire comes from the child as much as from her.

The things worth saying plainly: excluding widowed and childless women from these ceremonies has no textual basis and is cruel, so invite them. The belief that an eighth month birth is inauspicious is false and dangerous, since preterm babies need more care rather than less. If she goes to her natal home, carry the Mother and Child Protection Card and register at a facility near where she will actually deliver. No gender reveal, since finding out is an offence under the PCPNDT Act.

Danger signs requiring immediate hospital care: bleeding of any amount, severe headache or blurred vision, sudden swelling of face and hands, severe abdominal pain, reduced or absent fetal movement, fever, fluid leaking, persistent vomiting, difficulty breathing, and fits or convulsions. Ambulance 108, health helpline 104, emergency 112.