Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

On the Birth and Bearing of Children (From the "Sho-Rei
Hikki")
In the fifth month of a woman's pregnancy, a very lucky day is selected
for the ceremony of putting on a girdle, which is of white and red silk,
folded, and eight feet in length. The husband produces it from the left
sleeve of his dress; and the wife receives it in the right sleeve of her
dress, and girds it on for the first time. This ceremony is only performed
once. When the child is born, the white part of the girdle is dyed skyblue,
with a peculiar mark on it, and is made into clothes for the child.
These, however, are not the first clothes which it wears. The dyer is
presented with wine and condiments when the girdle is entrusted to
him. It is also customary to beg some matron, who has herself had an
easy confinement, for the girdle which she wore during her pregnancy;
and this lady is called the girdle-mother. The borrowed girdle is tied on
with that given by the husband, and the girdle-mother at this time gives
and receives a present.
The furniture of the lying-in chamber is as follows:—Two tubs for
placing under-petticoats in; two tubs to hold the placenta; a piece of furniture
like an arm-chair, without legs, for the mother to lean against; 132 a
stool, which is used by the lady who embraces the loins of the woman in
labour to support her, and which is afterwards used by the midwife in
washing the child; several pillows of various sizes, that the woman in
child-bed may ease her head at her pleasure; new buckets, basins, and
ladles of various sizes. Twenty-four baby-robes, twelve of silk and
twelve of cotton, must be prepared; the hems must be dyed saffron-colour.
There must be an apron for the midwife, if the infant is of high rank,
in order that, when she washes it, she may not place it immediately on
her own knees: this apron should be made of a kerchief of cotton. When
the child is taken out of the warm water, its body must be dried with a
kerchief of fine cotton, unhemmed.
On the seventy-fifth or hundred and twentieth day after its birth, the
baby leaves off its baby-linen; and this day is kept as a holiday. Although
it is the practice generally to dress up children in various kinds of silk,
this is very wrong, as the two principles of life being thereby injured, the
child contracts disease; and on this account the ancients strictly forbade
132.Women in Japan are delivered in a kneeling position, and after the birth of the
child they remain night and day in a squatting position, leaning back against a support,
for twenty-one days, after which they are allowed to recline. Up to that time the
recumbent position is supposed to produce a dangerous rush of blood to the head.
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