Yemeni Birth Traditions: Rituals at the Threshold of Life

In Yemen, the birth of a child has long been considered a sacred event, and it is often observed with elaborate rituals that have been passed down and evolved through the centuries. These customs vary from one province to another, from one tribe to another, and even from one village to another, as well as according to whether the newborn is a boy or a girl and the family’s religious beliefs. While it would be impossible to mention every Yemeni tradition related to childbirth, exploring some of them can provide a glimpse behind the veil of the wonder of birth that has perpetuated civilization in Yemen for millennia.

Laila, a mother from the highlands of Taiz province, says that in her village, preparations for the birth of a child begin some time before the expected due date. For example, relatives will begin buying fabric and preparing new clothes for the newborn, such as cotton dresses, as well as blankets. Later, when the mother’s contractions finally begin, a midwife is called to attend the birth, which often takes place in the family’s home.

In Laila’s village, midwives use traditional methods to ease the delivery while employing basic items such as clean cloths and warm water. There, the delivery is typically a secluded affair, and the village respects the family’s privacy during this time. Upon delivery, the new mother is offered warm milk with local ghee[1] while her newborn is washed. Meanwhile, as is the case all across Yemen, the child’s father is usually the first person to go to his wife to congratulate her and wish her health and well-being following the delivery. He looks at his new son or daughter and may quietly recite the call to prayer[2] in the newborn’s ear.

In Laila’s village, the new mother will rest and do no housework for the first week after giving birth. During that week, she will be given lots of chicken broth to drink and be served meals consisting primarily of free-range chicken from the village. This respite for a new mother in the village is much shorter than that of a mother in Yemen’s cities. For example, in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, a new mother may remain secluded in a bedroom for 10-15 days, where she will be served meals five times a day—beginning with breakfast around 7:00 a.m. and ending with a final meal around 10:00 p.m. Like the women in Laila’s village, many new mothers in Sana’a are also expected to eat a lot of chicken during those days—in some cases, an entire home-raised chicken each day during her recovery. Moreover, many Sana’ani mothers do not drink water for the first two weeks after delivery. Instead, they drink mostly coffee during the first two weeks, as this is believed to increase their milk production.[3]

The physical demands of rural life in Yemen mean that in Laila’s village, a new mother’s convalescence ends on the seventh day after childbirth with a celebration that symbolizes the beginning of the newborn’s life. Once the infant has survived for an entire week, it is considered safe to name the child, and the name chosen is often inspired by the name of a grandparent or selected for its religious significance. Well-off families typically observe this day by slaughtering a sheep and inviting other villagers to a feast at which meat is distributed to neighbors and relatives. Meanwhile, households that do not have the means to host such a gathering may simply slaughter a chicken. Either way, these practices are considered an expression of thanks to God for preserving the health of the mother and the newborn through the risks of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Male newborns are also typically circumcised on the seventh day.

While celebrations usually end on the seventh day after childbirth in the village, they may still not have begun in the city. In Sana’a, when a new mother finally does emerge from her seclusion, a place of honor is set for her in a prominent sitting room in the home, and a mawlid ceremony may be held, involving the recital of verses from the Qur’an and chanting religious songs. The place prepared for the mother is elevated higher than the rest of the seats in the room, and it is wide enough for her to lie down. It is normally decorated with a distinctive-smelling plant called shadhab,[4] and the mother wears an elaborate traditional dress. Shadhab is used for medicinal purposes in Yemen, but in its decorative form, it is considered a means of spiritual protection against the evil eye[5] because of its strong smell. In fact, many of Yemen’s birth traditions are associated with protecting against the evil eye, and these include rubbing preparations containing olive oil, frankincense, alum, and other ingredients on the head of the mother and her baby as well as decorating the faces of the mother and newborn using concoctions of ingredients like black cumin, resin, oud, and coal ground together.[6]

With precautions in place to ward off the evil eye, an urban newborn’s family may begin to welcome female relatives, neighbors, friends, and all manner of well-wishers to visit in the afternoons around 10 days after the delivery. Each woman who visits for the first time gives the newborn a gift of money—the amount of which depends on her economic circumstances as well as her degree of kinship to the child and its mother. As the guests come and go through the rituals of these days, they will all be served coffee, tea, cakes, biscuits, and nuts. They may also be offered qat, and tobacco water pipes may be available for them to smoke. The guests will be perfumed and steeped in incense[7] while music is played, and some may dance. Furthermore, a week after these visits begin, a special coffee party may be held. Coffee is, of course, served at the coffee party, along with tea, raisins, cakes, cookies, and a special dish made of lentils.

Traditionally, men in Sana’a only hold a specific celebration if the newborn baby is a boy, and they do so on the day the boy is circumcised, which may occur on the 11^th, 19^th, or 21^st day following delivery. As in the village, those who can afford it slaughter one or more lambs for this occasion and invite male relatives and friends to a feast at which they distribute meat to the poor, neighbors, family, in-laws, and friends. Meanwhile, the final celebration associated with childbirth is for the mother. It occurs 40 days after the delivery and is called as such, Al-Arbaeen. The mother’s hands and feet are adorned with intricate henna designs, and she wears a traditional dress with sprigs of basil in her hair for the occasion. A traditional singer may also be hired to perform songs. After this party, the new mother will be reunited with her husband and begin doing light chores. Visitors may continue passing through the home for the next 10 days. Of course, all these birth celebrations are costly, and low-income families traditionally begin saving for them from the fifth month of pregnancy onwards.[8]

Back in the village, most new mothers have long since returned to their household responsibilities before the Arbaeen arrives. However, according to Laila, nursing mothers are still encouraged to eat specific items, such as fenugreek, to support their nutrition and general post-partum health. They are also encouraged to drink hot beverages, and women in the community generally provide new mothers with psychological support and assist them with daily chores. That’s why Laila was surprised a few years ago when she went to visit a certain new mother in her village. “I told myself I had to visit her, because she had come to visit me after my first son was born,” says Laila. “I went very soon after she gave birth, and I was expecting to find her resting in a comfortable place with people serving her. But when I arrived to the house, I was surprised! I went into the room where she was receiving guests, and the new mother was the one who served me tea and water. She was the one who served me everything! I asked myself how she could be up making tea and cleaning the house when she’d just given birth. How could she not be resting? Finally, I asked her how she was managing to be up like that. She told me that she had no one to help her, so three days after the delivery she was back to doing everything—cleaning, cooking, serving food—everything.”

Like the woman Laila visited that day, an increasing number of mothers around Yemen are now facing childbirth with little support in the midst of Yemen’s ongoing war and humanitarian crisis that began in 2015. Many of these women are undernourished and anemic or have other conditions that contribute to high-risk pregnancies, all the while they continue fetching water, tending sheep, and managing their homes. Meanwhile, six out of every 10 births in Yemen now take place without a skilled birth attendant. As these women face some of the most precious and precarious moments of their lives alone, the onset of labor pains often brings terror rather than joy, and if something goes wrong, they may need to make a journey of three hours or more to reach a functioning hospital or health clinic. Only one in five of those facilities provides maternal and child health services, and in these circumstances, one woman is now dying every two hours in Yemen from childbirth or pregnancy-related causes. The Guardian recently told the story of Fatima, a Yemeni mother who died giving birth in May 2025, leaving two daughters behind who now tell their playmates that their mother had to take their baby brother to God.[9]

As the risks associated with childbirth in Yemen continued to grow in 2025, so too did the threats to the new lives that brave Yemeni women are delivering into the complexities of time and space that will shape their existence. According to an official from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, children are now dying of starvation in camps for displaced families in Yemen’s Hajjah province, and a short video from the World Food Program (WFP) tells the story of a family from Hajjah that has sold all they have in order to treat their malnourished son at a hospital in Sana’a. Despite the family’s sacrifices, he is not recovering. As for the Yemeni children who do beat malnutrition to survive past the age of five, many will have no access to education—either because the nearest schools are not functioning, or because their families simply cannot afford to send them. By the time they reach 10, young boys will be at risk of forced recruitment by armed groups, and girls will be at risk of early marriage.[10] Moreover, the birth traditions that have been celebrated in Yemen for generations will increasingly fall by the wayside as Yemeni families no longer have the means to sustain them within an interconnected global community that often disregards the most vulnerable lives entrusted to its care.[11]