Pregnancy and Birth: A Prayer for While in Labor

While practicing breathing for a natural delivery I discovered several ways to turn the breathing practices into prayer. Hebrew is a spiritual treasure chest because it allows for nuance based upon the common root which unites a word to its cousins. For example, neshamah is often translated as "soul" and it shares a root with neshimah, "breath." Each word echoes the other when spoken or prayed. Judaism focuses upon blood, soul and breath as necessary conditions for life. Breathing for the mother and the newborn are certainly major considerations. Two places in the liturgy popped out at me while I was training in breathing techniques for expected natural birth of our first born son:

#1. Kol ha neshamah t’hallel Yah Every soul will praise G*d.

or Every breath will praise G*d.

Nishmat kol hai t’vareh et shimha The soul of every life will praise Your name.

or The breath of every life will praise Your name.

[If you are allergic to the "G" word (G*d), perhaps use "the Mystery" or "Source of Life" in its place.]

Years after the birth of my children, in rabbinical school, I’d meet Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who sees in these verses evidence that Yah may have been the very sound of G*d’s name to the ancient Israelites [or perhaps without any vowels the more breathy and by tradition, discouraged, pronunciation of YHVH.]. I can attest to how amazing it was to make each breath into a praise and a prayer for this miracle of birth to come out all right. Even if you are not pregnant, you might try the feeling of this kind of breathing inside yourself:

1. First take a few Yah breaths as deep, gradual exhalations. Not so many as to hyperventilate, just enough to feel this fully, to focus on the breath experience.

2. Now try a few patterns of breath, of the kind you’ve learned in childbirth classes, using Yah as the syllable of your breath’s expression. Let possible meanings emerge for you.

3. Birthing can require determination and perseverance, you might now breathe in a way of reminder to the Source of Life that when this is over there "will be praise" T’ HAH LEL YAH YAH YAH.

4. Rest and now try Yah again as a gradual in-breath, foreshadowing a baby’s first breath of Life.

4. So another possible birthing breath prayer becomes: 

Out breath: T’hallel

In breath: Yah.

5. Which, you have probably noticed, is the origin of the Hebrew expression halleluYah!