The Functions of Childbirth
and Postpartum Henna Traditions

“The Functions of Childbirth and Postpartum Henna Traditions” is an academic research paper on the traditional uses of henna during and after pregnancy. In North Africa, the Levant, Arab and the Middle East, henna was used to symbolically mark and protect a woman from the Evil Eye during childbirth and after delivery. A woman delivering a child always feared that she or her child would not survive the birth, and henna prepared her to meet her husband as a bride again in the hereafter.

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