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Summary
- Richard Challoner’s Catholic prayer book The Garden of the Soul has a daily prayer for an expectant mother asking God to “defend both me and the tender fruit of my womb from all perils and all evils.”
- The 1928 Book of Common Prayer prays for “all women in child-birth” in its Litany and gives a thanksgiving for a woman after childbirth, with a short prayer for the baby.
- Short prayers cover the news, the first months, a scan, a high-risk or unplanned pregnancy, fear of the birth, labor, a daughter-in-law, bad news and the loss of a baby.
- The NHS tells pregnant women to call their midwife or maternity unit immediately, even at night, if the baby is moving less than usual.
- Russian Orthodox prayers for pregnancy are addressed to the Mother of God before icons such as “Helper in Childbirth”; many Catholics ask the prayers of Saint Gerard Majella (died 1755).
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Deuteronomy 31:6; Ruth 4:15; 1 Samuel 1:10, 27; Psalm 34:18; 56:3; 127:3; 139:13, 16; Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 1:5; John 16:21; James 1:5). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Challoner, Richard. The Garden of the Soul, or A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions for Christians Who, Living in the World, Aspire to Devotion. Printed by Richardson and Son, 1843. “A Prayer that may be daily said by a woman in the state of Pregnancy.” https://archive.org/details/TheGardenOfTheSoul1843 ; checked against the New York and Montreal edition (D. & J. Sadler, 1871), “A Prayer that may be daily said by a Woman with Child,” https://archive.org/details/GardenOfTheSoul1871
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. The Litany, p. 56; Thanksgivings, “The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth,” p. 51; The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, pp. 305–307. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906. “Prayers on the First Day after a Woman hath Given Birth to a Child,” p. 267. https://archive.org/details/ServiceBookOfHolyOrthodoxChurchByHapgood
- Azbuka very (Azbyka.ru). “Molitvy vo vremya beremennosti” (Prayers during pregnancy), Orthodox prayer book, with reader questions and a priest’s answer of 25 June 2025. https://azbyka.ru/molitvoslov/molitvy-vo-vremya-beremennosti.html
- Magnier, John. “St. Gerard Majella.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/St._Gerard_Majella
- Farrelly, Peter T., Jr. “Hope in the Handkerchief of a Saint.” Our Sunday Visitor, 19 January 1997; EWTN Library. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/hope-in-the-handkerchief-of-a-saint-5537
- NHS. “Your baby’s movements.” Page last reviewed 8 July 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/your-babys-movements/
