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Summary
- Short prayers cover the last weeks of pregnancy, fear of labor, the birth partner, the medical team, a long labor, a cesarean section and a baby in neonatal care.
- Short lines from Scripture, such as “My help cometh from the LORD” (Psalm 121:2), can be said between contractions.
- Traditional prayers are quoted from Hapgood’s 1906 Orthodox service book (the first day after a birth), the 1888 Catholic Manual of Prayers (thanksgiving after childbirth) and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (thanksgiving after child-birth).
- Prayers after the birth give thanks, bless the newborn, ask for the mother’s recovery and help for new parents, and give the child to God as Hannah did (1 Samuel 1:27–28).
- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches baptize infants, while Baptist churches baptize believers and often dedicate babies instead.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 35:17; Deuteronomy 33:27; 1 Samuel 1:27–28; Psalm 22:9; 28:7; 56:3; 121:2; Isaiah 40:11; 41:10; Mark 10:16; John 16:21). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. Prayers on the First Day after a Woman hath Given Birth to a Child, p. 267. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. Thanksgiving after Childbirth, p. 458. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Thanksgivings, “The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth,” p. 51. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 1250. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3K.HTM
- Southern Baptist Convention. The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article VII, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/
