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Summary
- Bishop England’s Garden of the Soul (1871) gives a daily prayer for a woman with child asking God to “defend both me and the tender fruit of my womb from all perils and all evils.”
- Short prayers cover the first weeks, a first pregnancy, the baby’s growth, sickness, scans, a high-risk or unexpected pregnancy, the father, older children, money, labor and the birth.
- The Orthodox Church has prayers for the first day after a birth, and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer has a thanksgiving for a mother’s safe delivery.
- Hannah (“For this child I prayed,” 1 Samuel 1:27) and Elisabeth, whose baby “leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41), are the Bible’s best-known expectant mothers.
- Many Catholics ask the prayers of Saint Gerard Majella (died 1755) for expectant mothers, a popular devotion; most Protestants pray to God alone.
- Prayer goes alongside a doctor’s or midwife’s care; the NHS advises calling a midwife at once if a baby moves less than usual.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (1 Samuel 1:27; Psalm 22:10; 34:18; 139:13; Isaiah 40:11; 41:10; Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:41–42; John 16:21). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- England, John. The Garden of the Soul: A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions. Enlarged edition. New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1871. “A Prayer that may be daily said by a Woman with Child,” pp. 282–283. https://archive.org/details/GardenOfTheSoul1871
- 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; The Litany, p. 56. 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, 1906. Prayers on the First Day after a Woman hath given Birth to a Child, p. 267. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Magnier, John. “St. Gerard Majella.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06467c.htm
- Simply Catholic (Our Sunday Visitor). “St. Gerard Majella: A Saint for Pregnant Women.” https://www.simplycatholic.com/st-gerard-majella/
- NHS. “Your baby’s movements.” https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/your-babys-movements/
- NHS. “Vaginal bleeding in pregnancy.” https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/related-conditions/common-symptoms/vaginal-bleeding/
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