**3. Ritual Meanings of Pregnancy and Birth in Western Society**

Rituals are ways of giving structure to uncertainties and ambiguous feelings, while at the same time they can destabilize the status quo and existing group identities (Grimes 2014; Bell 1997). Rituals can be of guidance during existential questioning, prescribing a specific embodied and spiritual "infrastructure". For instance, baptism guides parents with certain spiritual rules and moral values, which is experienced and strengthened through participating in a baptism ritual. The baby is blessed and welcomed into a religious community. At the same time, using Grimes (2002) words, a ritual, "unlike an ethical principle, can thrive on ambiguity. A rite can acknowledge the seriousness of the act [ ... ] without having to resolve the moral issues." (p. 315). Ritual can be of moral orientation, but this does not mean that it always prescribes them explicitly. What is more, in societies where traditional rituals are not common anymore, these moral and social guidelines become more vague or pluralistic and new ways of meaning making are enculturated, for instance, the increasing interest in

<sup>2</sup> See for discussion of these terms: (Grimes 2014, p. 211ff).

parenting literature. Bookstores and the internet are filled with advice on how to care for and raise a baby. While the existing and growing knowledge on care for a child is a source of guidance, it can also lead to even more insecurity, due to many contrasting pieces of advice. What is more, rational or scientific knowledge does not necessarily give answer to existential questions.

In contemporary Western societies, the context of birth has been greatly influenced by sociological and technological changes (Conrad 2007; Davis-Floyd 1992). Birth rates in Western societies (as well as other industrialized societies) have been decreasing steadily (Kiernan 2004). Fewer children are born, mothers and fathers become parents at an older age and parenthood is more or less a personal choice. The "Western way" of birthing has been mainly influenced by medicine and technology (Davis-Floyd 1992).

In Western society, pregnancy and birth were not shared publicly, in most cases not even with the father-to-be who was not allowed to be present during the birth for a long time. Only in the last 30 years or so, pregnancy and birth have become more visible in our society. The image of the nude and pregnant body of actress Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity fair in 1991 was shocking at the beginning, but started a movement and more celebrities started to show off their "baby bumps" in the media.<sup>3</sup> Women's fashion started to also change and maternity clothes made the pregnant belly more visible. The pregnant belly became something to be proud of and not something to hide. This new visibility of pregnancy brought new ideals of motherhood: a mother should look a certain way (Prinds et al. 2020). On the internet, birth photography and the sharing of birth stories have been trending within the last years, making pregnancy and birth more visible.

What is more, traditional religious rituals have been decreasing in Western, secular societies. Since the 1970s, baptism has been decreasing steadily in many Northern and Western European countries (Alfani 2018). To give an example: in the Netherlands, which is a strongly secularized society, approximately 21.5% of the population consider themselves Catholic.4 In 2018, 10,380 babies were baptized in the Catholic community the Netherlands, which is 6.24% of all babies born in that year. In Belgium, 45% of all newborn are baptized, significantly more than the Netherlands, but the trend shows a steady decrease between 2010 and 2016 with <sup>−</sup>34.5%.5 In Sweden, 44% of babies were baptized in 2016 and in France, between 2010–2013, an average of 37% of babies were baptized (Alfani 2018). While baptism remains common in some countries, such as Poland (100% in 2015) and also Italy (with 79% in 2015), we see that in many Northwestern European countries the percentages decrease. These statistics show us that depending on the country a baby is born, choosing this collective religious rite may be a personal choice and the trend shows a decrease. In Northwestern European countries, the majority of babies are not baptized. It is yet unclear to what extent alternative ceremonies are offered or whether parents do refrain from any. In comparison, after death, a funeral or some form of body disposal is necessary and families can choose what kind of rituals accompany the funeral. In the case of birth, there is not a direct necessity to have a social gathering or collective ceremony to announce the birth of a baby.

Grimes (2002) notices that in contemporary Western, secularized societies, birth is more a *passage*, rather than a *rite of passage*, due to the lack of collective rituals around pregnancy and birth. Davis-Floyd (1992) has contributed an important perspective to our understanding that birth in Western societies is also highly ritualized within a medical setting. In her well-known book *Birth as an American Rite of Passage*, she argues that medial practices in hospitals are also significant practices of ritualizing birth. Western medicine and technology have become prominent, not only in the care for the pregnant and birthing woman, but also in the way we give meaning to birth. Other authors have followed Davis-Floyd and further discussed the ritual dimension of pregnancy and childbirth (McCallum and dos Reis 2005;

<sup>3</sup> The photograph taken by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz has been chosen as one of the 100 most influential images of all times by Times magazine: http://100photos.time.com/photos/annie-leibovitz-demi-moore/.

<sup>4</sup> https://www.rkkerk.nl/kerk/kerkprovincie/kerncijfers/.

<sup>5</sup> https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/03/05/minder-dan-helft-van-alle-kinderen-wordt-nog-gedoopt/.

Cheyney 2011; Burns 2014, 2015; Jacinto and Buckey 2013; Freedman 2011; van Gysgem 2017). There are, however, different modes or densities of ritual (Grimes 2010, 2014). Daily ritualizations, the participation in a social ceremony or liturgy, represent a different ritual layer. Ritual in medical settings has ritual aspects but differs form a ceremony that is intentionally marked as a social gathering and puts attention towards a specific life-event. All ritual layers are significant in enculturation and meaning making. However, the absence of ritual ceremony at the start of life is striking and brings us to the later described two examples.
