What is a Mother Blessing?
Different than a traditional baby shower, a Mother Blessing is a gathering of a mother’s community (usually all women) to support and honor the pregnant mother as she approaches giving birth to her baby.
Giving birth is a rite of passage. (There is actually a fantastic book by this title that I highly recommend.) Giving birth is life changing, no matter if it is your first baby, or tenth baby. Birth changes women and helps to shape the mothers that we become. It shapes the way we see the world and ourselves. It is a deeply profound experience, regardless of how your birth unfolds.
The Mother Blessing ceremony is a way for us to honor this space of motherhood. Baby showers focus on the baby, while the mothers often get forgotten. The Mother Blessing holds the mother in the center of the focus.
There are no rules, and each event will look a little different from others. I’ve hosted several for friends and some of the activities we’ve done include the following:
Decorating prayer flags to hang on the wall of the birthing space; you can use fabric markers or paint. Alternatively, it can be done on paper, and this can be hung up. You can use encouraging affirmations to decorate them. (You can see a photo of the ones created at one of my own Mother Blessing events above).
Fear releasing ceremony (the mother writes her fears on small bits of paper and then those get burned, to symbolically release them).
Foot bath soaking for the mother (I like to add Epsom salts and dried flowers)
Everyone brings some beads, ideally with some significance from the giver, and they can be string into a necklace or a single strand.
Everyone brings some dried herbs or essential oils, and these are all added to a big bowl of Epsom and sea salts, to make bath salts. This is then put into small jars for each person to take home with them, to remind them of the mother.
Candles. Sometimes they can be given to each participant to take home with them to light when they hear the news that the mother is in labor. Or, each participant can bring a candle to the event and the mother then can light them all during her birth, to remember each person and their love for her, as a source of strength, during her labor.
Belly henna. This is a fun thing to include if you have some artistic skills (or you can hire someone to do it!). Using henna, a beautiful design is drawn on the pregnant belly.
Flower crown for the mother to wear.
The bracelet circle. The participants, sitting in a circle, pass around a ball of yarn, wrapping a few times around their wrist (or ankle), without cutting the string. This creates a circle of women, all connected by the same yarn. As each person wraps it around their wrist, they state the names of their children (if they have children) and then the names of their maternal lineage, as far back as they know. Once the circle is complete, everyone can cut the strings and tie the bracelets on. They are kept on until they hear that they mother has given birth, thus another way to keep the expecting mother in their thoughts and prayers.
Have a meal train sign-up sheet, for participants to sign up to bring a meal to the new family once the baby is born.
Include meaningful prayers or verses.
If you are pregnant and you don’t have anyone in your life to organize a Mother Blessing, do it for yourself! Gathering the people that you care about to honor and support you during your transition into motherhood is a wonderful thing to do. I am sure they would be happy to attend and hold the space for you, even if the idea of a Mother Blessing isn’t familiar to them. I’ve organized two of my own Mother Blessings, and I can attest to how wonderful it feels to be loved and supported as you get closer to the birth.
Having friends and family hold witness and acknowledge the transition she is about to embark upon supports a smoother postpartum transition for the mother. For so many reasons, the Mother Blessing is a beautiful event that I would love to see become more common in our modern world.
